Astray
by cutflowers
Summary: AU, Amissverse. The other side of the story.
1. A Million Miles Away

**Um. What. Extremely late Thursday night is totally mid-week. You guys didn't know that? **

**Warning: Idk, the usual crack, I guess.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not even the consumer products Disney wishes I would.**

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**Chapter One: A Million Miles Away**

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_We all have reasons  
for moving.  
I move  
to keep things whole._

– Mark Strand

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**12 October 2006**

Hannah's mind was already racing when she woke. She had the photo shoot first thing, and then the cd signing, and after that Oprah. That was before lunch. Then after lunch...no, she might not get lunch, because she thought the anti-drug PSA shoot started at one-thirty, and Oprah wouldn't wrap until one.

Hannah reached for her phone to check that, but it wasn't there. She sat up. There it was, over on the dresser. But she never left her phone over there. She always had it right next to her bed. It was her back-up alarm, and she used it to make notes if she thought of something during the night. And – she squinted at it – it looked like a different phone.

She threw back the covers to go get it and realized the sheets were different, too. Hannah shook her head slightly, trying to make sense of it. That was when she noticed her hair. It was _brown_. It hadn't been brown in almost three years, not since the label decided she'd sell better as a blonde.

What the...?

"Hello?" Hannah called cautiously, looking around the rest of the room. Everything else was different, the walls, the furniture, blankets, throw pillows, clothes on the floor, her balcony doors. It was like someone had come in and redecorated the room while she slept.

"Am I being punk'd?" Hannah said, wanting to get it over with if she was. She didn't have time for one of Ashton's pranks. Although this seemed a bit odd for that. Usually his pranks involved a much more elaborate set up and at least two other people. And he wouldn't have put cameras in her bedroom, would he?

Please, not here, she thought.

And _dyeing her hair?_ That was taking things too far, even for Ashton.

There was a noise downstairs. Good, she thought, her brain lurching back onto her original train of thought. She would figure out how this had happened later. But for now that would be Pierre and she needed to see how fast he could make breakfast, because something would have to be done about her hair. The photo shoot might even have to be cancelled, but she would call Traci first and see if that stylist she was always raving about could fit her in for an emergency appointment. Or maybe this was some kind of temporary dye, like the kind you got for Halloween, and it would come out in the shower. That actually did sound like Ashton. She would try washing it out while Pierre was cooking.

There wasn't any time to waste. She hurried out of bed and down the stairs, tossing her troublesome hair behind her shoulders so she wouldn't have to look at it.

Everything downstairs was different too, and Pierre wasn't in the kitchen. Her father was.

"Daddy!" Hannah said in surprise. The Ashton Kutcher theory was rapidly losing credibility. She didn't think her dad would have come all the way back from – where had he been? Switzerland? – just to help punk her. "What are you doing here?"

"That some kinda trick question, bud?" Robby Ray turned from where he was cooking – _cooking_, her dad was _cooking_ – at the stove and regarded her with confusion. "I live here."

Since when? she almost said, but this was, after all, his house. "But when did you get back?" she persisted. "And where's Candice?"

"Back from where?" he said. And, "Who's Candice?"

Ashton was making a comeback. Hannah turned in a slow circle, inspecting everything carefully. "So where are the cameras?" She couldn't find them. She wondered what Ashton had promised her dad to get him to show up for this. Maybe a part in his next movie for Candice. "Can we hurry this up so someone can tell me how to fix my hair? I've got a photo shoot in an hour."

When she finished her surveying circle her dad was looking at her with worried eyes. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked.

Hannah reined in her annoyance. It wouldn't do to come across on camera as a stuck-up bitch who couldn't take a joke. So she forced herself to smile brightly. "Of course I am, why?" The blinds were up. They could have miked the place and be filming from outside. She glanced back over her shoulder but still didn't see anything.

"Because you're not making a whole lotta sense, Mile."

She wished he wouldn't call her that on-camera. But fine, she thought. Whatever. This thing would obviously be over when it was over. She would just have to play along until then. But it would have been nice if Ashton could have scheduled this better.

Yet another reason she needed a new mana— damn. Now that was one meeting that would obviously have to be rescheduled. As much as she needed a new manager, it would be awkward to have that happen when her dad was in town. Maybe if the hair had an easy fix she could push the photo shoot into its time slot. The day didn't have to be completely trashed just because Ashton was inconsiderate and her father appeared out of nowhere.

"Sorry, Daddy," she said sweetly. "I was just having the weirdest dream and I guess I haven't woken up all the way yet."

"Well, I _was _a bit surprised I didn't have to come upstairs with a bucket of water to get you up," her dad said. He put a plate over on the table. "Come on, I made you an omelet."

Hannah took a seat at the table readily enough but regarded the omelet with suspicion. It smelled okay, but to her dad never cooked. He'd tried to learn once, those first few months after her mother died, but most of those attempts had ended in disaster. And once they'd moved, he'd been so busy, first with her career and then with Candice, so he'd given up, hired Pierre, and to her knowledge hadn't come near a stove since.

Miley prodded the omelet with her fork. She really couldn't afford losing a day to food poisoning, or getting a piece of eggshell lodged in her throat and not being able to sing. Her dad brought over two other plates and sat in front of one. So Candice _would_ be making an appearance. That wasn't exactly surprising if cameras were involved.

"Some reason you aren't eating?" Robby Ray asked. She gingerly took a small bite. It was good. Really good. She chewed carefully. No eggshells. "Now where is that dang brother of yours?"

Hannah froze with the fork halfway to her mouth. That was a really good question, she thought, but why was her father asking it?

"Finally," her dad said to the sound of feet descending the stairs. Jackson came into the kitchen.

Hannah dropped her fork. It clattered loudly against the plate and her bite of egg flew off and landed on the table. There was nothing, _nothing_, that Ashton Kutcher possibly could have done or promised to get Jackson to come back here. Nothing. This wasn't Ashton.

This was something else.

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Hannah Montana wouldn't shut up. Lilly battled her way out of unconsciousness and then wrestled free from the blankets covering her. Who the hell was playing Hannah Montana so loudly she could hear it in her room? She was going to fire the maid. What was her name? Fiona? Colleen? It didn't matter, she wouldn't be around much longer.

She finally got free of the covers, making a pained, surprised noise as she sat up. A band of fire smarted across her stomach under her ribs, and Lilly spread a hand over it, hissing when it turned out to be sensitive to the touch. What. The. Hell. She hadn't even gotten drunk last night, she would remember if she'd done anything to hurt herself. And –

This wasn't her room. Where the hell was she? Lilly tried not to panic, searching her memories of last night. There had been a party, and that boy, Jerome. Had he slipped her something? No, she hadn't taken anything from him. Amber had been telling her that he was hot, she should go for it, but she'd had a headache and gone home, leaving Amber and Ashley to find their own rides.

She clearly remembered driving back to the townhouse, gulping down some Advil to ease the tightness at her temples before she crashed in bed. Had she been _kidnapped?_

No. Not kidnapped. She recognized this room. This was her room, the one she'd had at her parents' house. Whoever had redecorated it sure had no eye for color – hello, yellow? _Snot_ was yellow – and was carrying on some kind of freaky love affair with posters of shirtless skateboarders and Hannah Montana, but Lilly recognized the layout of the room and the furniture.

Hannah Montana. Lilly became aware of her singing again, somewhere very close by, and she leaned over and smashed the stop button on the alarm clock by the bed. Hannah shut up, but Lilly's stomach spasmed in pain again. She peeled her shirt up – _not_ the same one she'd worn to bed last night. She slept in silk, thank you very much, or in nothing at all, not some crappy cotton-poly blend.

A giant bruise bisected the skin of her torso, running just under her ribs, splotched black and purple. Okay, Lilly thought. Seriously. What the hell.

Banging on the door cut through her confusion. "Lilly! Lillian!" It was her mother. So she was definitely in her parents' house. But what the hell was she doing there? "What are you doing still in bed? You're going to be late! Hurry up and I'll drop you off on my way into the office."

Late for _what?_ The clock said seven fifteen. Where could she possibly have to be so early? She usually didn't get up until noon. But, hell, now that she was up she certainly wasn't going to stick around here. And screw wherever her mom thought she was dropping her off, Lilly was calling a cab and getting the hell out of here. Once she did, she could call Amber and Ashley and find out what happened. She just had to pee first.

She got out of bed and cautiously opened the door to her room. Her mother was gone. Good. Lilly didn't know what had happened, but whatever it was, she did _not_ want to deal with her mother.

Maybe she had taken something. She could have taken something and blacked out, blacked out like a whole day, and it was Thursday morning instead of Wednesday. And somehow she'd gotten this damn bruise and ended up here. Lilly wasn't surprised that her parents had redecorated – weird choices, but whatever – but she was a little surprised her mother had let her crash instead of kicking her to curb. She was even more surprised Heather wasn't up in her face screaming right now. That had always been one of her mother's favorite tactics.

Lilly checked the hall one more time and almost ran down it to the bathroom. The room was warm and humid, steam coating the mirror and shower doors. Ben must have been in there. Ugh. Sharing a bathroom was something she definitely hadn't missed since moving out of her parents' house. Not that she'd missed anything, really.

She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, rinsed her mouth out. She didn't feel hung over or like she was coming down from something. The only thing that hurt was her stomach. Whatever. Getting out of here was priority one. Heather probably thought she was going to drop Lilly off at a halfway house or something. Like that was going to happen.

Lilly headed back to the bedroom to scrounge for clothes. She checked the floor for whatever she might have been wearing yesterday: nada. Maybe she'd thrown up on them? She was sure Heather would let her know if she had. Loudly.

Back-up plan. The closet. Maybe some of her old clothes would still be in it. They'd be out of style but should mostly still fit. Lilly prided herself on never gaining an ounce.

Except her clothes weren't there. _Someone's_ were, though, which, what the hell? Were her parents renting out the room to another teenage girl? Whoever it was, they were seriously impaired in the taste department. The clothes were all hideous. Some of the shirts were _neon green_, for god's sake. And they were all cheap crap.

Whatever, she thought. She just needed something to wear long enough to get back home. She grabbed the least disgusting thing she could find, a pair of dark jeans and a plain purple shirt, and pulled them on. They fit perfectly. Seriously. Freaking. Weird.

As soon as she was dressed she ran a hand through her hair and went to downstairs to battle her mother for the phone.

"I've got cereal, Pop-Tarts, and a banana," Heather said as soon as Lilly entered the kitchen. "Hurry up and eat the cereal, you can take the rest in the car."

Lilly looked down at the giant bowl of cereal, two frosted Pop-Tarts, and banana on the counter. "I don't eat breakfast," she said automatically, even though her stomach was so empty she thought it might be trying to devour her spine.

Her mother laughed. "You don't..." She actually doubled over a little and had to grab the counter, she was laughing so hard. "You don't eat breakfast. Cute, Lilly, very cute. Now hurry up. You're late."

"No, I'm not." Time for Heather to realize Lilly wasn't just going to go along with whatever she had planned.

"Yes, you are. School starts in fifteen minutes."

"School?" Lilly laughed. _School_? "I'm not going to school."

"Yes, you are," Heather repeated.

Lilly started to argue, but then she saw the newspaper on the counter next to the cereal bowl, folded into thirds. Thursday, Octob-, it said before the fold obscured the rest. That was wrong. It wasn't October, it was March. There was no way she'd blacked out for that long.

She reached out and flipped it over. -er 12, 2006, it said on the other side.

Lilly felt a little dizzy. But it was just a newspaper. An old one her parents had kept for some reason. She ignored the way it was a little damp, like it had been lying out on the dewy grass. "Where did this come from?"

Her mother gave her a funny look. "Outside. The same place it comes from every morning."

Lilly put a hand on the counter to steady herself. "This is today's paper?" No. It wasn't. That wasn't possible.

"Of course it is. Are you feeling all right?"

"No," Lilly said. She was not feeling all right. Not even close. What the hell was going on? It was not 2006. "I...I – " She spun around and fled upstairs to the bathroom. The mirror was still steam-fogged. Lilly wiped at it with her sleeve. This had to be some kind of joke or –

Lilly lowered her arm and looked at herself in the cleared swath on the mirror. The face of her fourteen-year-old self stared back.

Well, shit.

She swayed and almost fell.

Lilly closed the lid on the toilet and sat on top of it, covering her face with her hands to shut all of this crazy shit out. Okay. Something was really, really wrong. Blacking out didn't explain this. She didn't even think hallucinating would explain this. She usually avoided anything harder than pot, but Amber had gotten her to drop acid a couple months ago, and this was nothing like that. This was like a waking dream.

Lilly dropped her hands and pinched herself. Just in case. Nothing happened. But maybe that didn't really work. She wasn't going to rule it out. This being a dream was a lot easier to believe than the idea that she might have _traveled back in time_. Even this being a hallucination was easier to believe than that.

She stood up and checked the mirror. There was that face again.

_Shit_.

A dream, or hallucination. It had to be. It had to be. Things like this didn't _happen_, you didn't wake up one day back in time, back in your body at fourteen. Time travel wasn't _real_.

She didn't even let herself think about the other things, about the bruise she'd never had, the decorations she'd never put on her walls, the clothes in her closet she'd never bought. At least there was a word for time travel, at least she knew what it _was_, no matter how impossible. Waking up to find the world different than it had ever been, past or present, that was something else.

If she tried to tell anyone about this, they'd think she was crazy. Of course they would. Hell, they might be right. Maybe she was crazy. That made more sense than any of the other stuff she'd come up with. Except crazy people never thought they were crazy, did they? That was part of what made them crazy. Wasn't it?

Shit. What did she know about being crazy? Maybe if she told someone they could give her drugs, something to make this all disappear.

She was still looking at herself in the mirror, at the face that was hers and not-hers. She didn't think there was any drug in the world that would make it go away.

"Lilly!" her mother screamed up the stairs. "Two minutes!"

Shit shit _shit_. Why the hell did she have to go and dream or hallucinate or have crazy-visions of her freaking _mother_? Where was Orlando Bloom?

Her mom was good for one thing, though. Her screeching made Lilly stop freaking about what this was and focus on what she should do. Okay, she decided. She would play along. Go to school. See what happened. Because if she was back here, back in time, her house might not be there. And Amber and Ashley would be at school. Maybe they could tell her what was going on. She could always ditch after she talked to them.

If this was a dream, eventually she'd wake up. A hallucination would end, if she was crazy she'd see pigs flying or something. And if not...

Better not to think about that.

"I'm coming!" she screamed back, and at least that felt normal. Screaming at her mother. She'd take what she could get right now.

This might be a dream, she might be crazy. She had to be crazy if she was going to go to school dressed like this. She reached for the purple toothbrush by the sink and brushed her teeth, then went back to her-room-not-her-room to search for make-up. She might be going crazy but she still had standards.

"Lillian!" Heather screeched again, but Lilly didn't let it bother her. She never had. There was a bookbag on the desk chair and Lilly paused to investigate it, finding a small travel pouch of make-up. Her mother yelled up the stairs a third time and Lilly decided whatever was in it would have to be good enough. It wouldn't make that much of a difference, really, not with what she was wearing.

"I hope you called Miley and told her not to wait for you," Heather said as they got into the car.

Who the hell was Miley? The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Lilly couldn't remember where she'd heard it before. But who cared? She had other things on her mind, like making herself look decent with this crappy make-up.

That only took a few minutes, and for the rest of the ride Lilly sat and watched the scenery outside her window, streets and buildings she hadn't seen in a year. By the time they got to the school Lilly had pinched herself twenty-three times, but she was still here.

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Hannah came to a stop just inside the school doors. The hallways were filled with students, everyone milling around in a loud, chaotic mess. Someone came in behind Hannah, bumped into her back, and Hannah moved further inside, out into the middle of the hall. Any second now, one of these kids was going to notice her and say something, and then all of them would be all over her. Hannah waited for it, wanted it. She needed something normal to happen, just one thing in all of this that made sense.

Jackson had driven her to school. _School_. Her dad had told her to go get ready for school and Hannah had, too confused and shocked to do anything but obey. First, though, he'd asked her again if she was okay, he and Jackson staring at her like she was the one acting strangely, out of place, when they were the ones who shouldn't even _be_ here.

Upstairs, she'd stumbled around the unfamiliar room, getting dressed and finding a bookbag on the window seat, though she still couldn't make herself believe this wasn't all just some horrible joke, even when she discovered that her closet was gone. All of her clothes, all of her shoes, the entire closet the size of a room. Gone.

In its place was a tiny substitute with a single rack of clothes, and why would anyone, ever, for any reason, make her _closet_ disappear? She'd sat on the window seat next to the bookbag for a long time, her mind spinning from one explanation to the next, discarding them all, until Jackson barged into the room groaning about how Robby Ray said he had to drive her.

She'd watched him in the car, apologies and questions stopped up in her throat. Halfway there, he'd braked at a traffic light, glared at her, demanded, "What? Do I have something on my face?"

"No," she'd said, because there was nothing on his face, none of the anger or bitterness that had been there the last time she'd seen him.

"Then what?" he asked, flipping down the mirror on the sun visor to check for himself.

"Nothing," she said, holding back _What are you doing here? What am __**I**__ doing here? What's going on?_ because it was so clear she was the only one who thought anything was wrong.

So she needed something now, she needed a mob of fans screaming at her so she knew that something was still right, that she was still herself. But the minutes crept by and nothing happened. A couple people glanced her way, and once a girl with curly blonde hair waved at her, but there were no shouts of discovery, no swarm pressing in around her. Maybe these people were used to going to school with her and didn't think anything of it anymore. Or maybe...

Maybe she wasn't famous here, wherever here was. Maybe Hannah Montana didn't exist in this place.

No, she told herself, that couldn't be it. The whole world might be different, but she was still the same. She had to be. It must be the first thing. Just because all of this was new to her obviously didn't mean it was new to anyone else. They were all acting like this was normal for them because to them it was.

So she should act like it was normal for her, too. She didn't want people thinking she'd gone crazy. That kind of thing would stay in the news for weeks. She should just...what did people do in high school? Did she have a locker? How was she supposed to know where it was? And the combination, and her classes, how was she supposed to know what they were?

"Miley!" someone called, and why, why was he calling her that? Hannah's eyes darted in the direction of the voice, then back at the rest of the crowd to see how they reacted. They didn't. So either...either they really didn't care about her being famous, or...or she really wasn't.

"Miley," the voice said again, much closer this time. It belonged to a boy with shaggy dark hair who was now standing in front of her. "Hey," he said. "Where's Lilly?"

Who? And who was he? Hannah just kept the questions from escaping. "I don't know," she temporized instead.

The boy frowned. "She didn't walk with you?"

"My brother drove me," Hannah said, and she couldn't help it, she was starting to panic. She was clearly supposed to know this boy and she didn't. She was supposed to know where her locker was and her classes, she was supposed to know who she was here, how she fit, she was supposed to know everything but she didn't because all of this was wrong, it was _wrong_, she had to be going crazy for real and screw the bad publicity, she was going to start screaming in a minute, except maybe there wouldn't be any bad publicity because maybe she wasn't even herself, maybe even that had been taken away, maybe –

"There she is," the boy said, and Hannah pulled herself together enough to focus on him, on the perplexed look he was leveling at a blonde girl who had come in another door down the hall from them and was heading towards two other girls at their lockers. "What in the world does she want with Amber and Ashley?"

I don't know, Hannah thought, and almost did scream. She was probably having a nervous breakdown. Didn't you end up sobbing in a corner when you had a nervous breakdown? Hannah felt like she might be about five minutes away from that.

The blonde girl said something to the other two girls. Hannah couldn't hear what. They were too far away. But she heard what the girls said in response.

"Ew, get away from me, you freak!" the black girl said, loud enough that her voice carried over the entire hallway and the crowd of students in it fell silent.

"Yeah, you freak!" echoed the Asian girl, mimicking the first girl.

"Amber," the blonde girl said. Lilly, Hannah reminded herself. Lilly looked extremely confused. Hannah could relate.

"I said, get away from me, dork. Where did you find that outfit, Ugly-R-Us?"

"Come on," the boy hissed at Hannah, grabbing her wrist. "What is she thinking? We have to stop her." He pulled her down the hall before she could protest, snatched Lilly's arm, and yanked them both further down the corridor towards a side hall. "Nice talking to you, ladies," he called over his shoulder at Amber and Ashley.

"Please, like we'd ever talk to you losers," one of them yelled back, and then the boy pushed Hannah and Lilly into the other hallway and out of sight.

"What's wrong with you?" he hissed at Lilly, who still looked confused. "Antagonizing Amber and Ashley like that, do you _want_ them coming after us?"

"Oliver?" Lilly said. Oliver, Hannah thought. Oliver, Lilly, Amber, Ashley. And he had called her Miley. "What are you talking about? They're my – " She paused and continued with less certainty. "They're my friends."

"_Friends?_" A blood vessel bulged in the boy's – Oliver's forehead. "_Amber and Ashley?_ Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? If this is one of those stupid schemes you and Miley are always doing, I really think – "

"Miley?" Lilly asked, appearing to notice Miley for the first time. Her eyes narrowed, then widened. "_Hannah?_"

Miley's whole body jolted with relief and she had to blink hard to stop herself from breaking down and crying. Hannah. Thank god. The idea that she'd woken up somewhere everything she'd worked so hard for didn't exist had been too painful to think about. Finally, here was someone who knew who she was, someone who acknowledged –

Oliver leapt forward and clapped a hand over Lilly's mouth. "Are you crazy?" he demanded.

Lilly pulled away from his hand. "Maybe," she muttered darkly.

"You know who I am," Hannah said, wanting her to confirm it, wanting proof that _she_ wasn't crazy, that yes, she was who she thought she was.

"Of course I do," Lilly said, startled, at the same time Oliver said, "Well, duh, but you can't go saying it _here_."

"Why not?" both of them asked, and then shared a surprised look.

"Why n..." He trailed off and stared at both of them. "Why – I – " He shook his head and stared at them some more, and Hannah held her breath, hoping that finally something would be explained to her. "What...what happened to you guys? Did you hit your heads, or...?"

"No," Hannah said, frustrated and not able to hold back anymore. "I didn't hit my head, at least, I don't think I did, I just..."

"Woke up," Lilly finished.

Their eyes met. "Yeah," Hannah agreed. "And everything was – "

"Different."

"Yeah," Hannah said again, realizing. "It happened to you, too."

Lilly nodded. "Yeah."

Well, that was something. It probably wasn't a nervous breakdown if it had happened to this other girl, too. They probably hadn't both gone crazy at the same time, they probably –

"_What_ happened?" Oliver asked, bewildered, exasperated.

"We don't _know_," Lilly snapped. "Weren't you paying attention?"

"Why are you yelling at me?"

"Why _aren't_ you yelling at me?" Lilly said, her voice rising even further. Some of the students around them were shooting them strange looks. "Why aren't _both_ of you – "

"Whoa, hey, guys," Hannah interjected. "Can we maybe just calm down a minute and try to figure out what's going on?" It had to be, like, the definition of irony that she was trying to get these people to hold it together when she was about two seconds from falling apart herself. But it helped to have other people to concentrate on. It helped to know she wasn't alone in this.

Oliver and Lilly looked at her and the tension between them relaxed a fraction. Hannah waited a minute to give the other students time to lose interest, and before she could figure out where to start the shrill ring of the bell stopped her.

"After class?" Oliver asked, licking his lips.

"Screw class," Lilly said. Hannah was in complete agreement, but Oliver shook his head at the blonde girl. "What?" Lilly said. "This is way more important than _class_."

"Yeah, uh, Oliver?" Hannah said, trying out his name. "I think class is the last thing we need to be worried about right now."

"Are you sure this isn't a joke?" Oliver asked. They nodded in unison. "Okay," he said, coming to a decision. "Come on, let's go before we get busted for being in the halls."

He led them down several hallways, all the way to the end of one and into an empty classroom. Hannah wondered if they should really be involving him in all of this. How did she know if she could trust him not to go to the press and sell the story of Hannah's nervous breakdown? But it was too late. He already knew. He was already in it.

And they needed someone who knew how things were in this place.

They pulled three desks into a circle and sat, staring at each other uncertainly.

"So...," Oliver said, then trailed off.

"Maybe we should start at the beginning," Hannah said.

"Okay," Lilly agreed. "You first."

The words started spilling out of Hannah's mouth. She was nearly trembling with relief at being able to tell someone what had happened. "I went to bed last night and everything was normal," she started. "And then when I woke up this morning, my hair was different, and my room...Everything was different. My dad was there, and my brother, and the whole house was decorated different – "

"The same house?" Lilly asked.

"What do you mean?" Hannah said, confused.

"It was the same house, just decorated different?"

"Yeah," Hannah said, and then her eyebrows shot up. "You woke up in a different house?"

"I woke up in my old bedroom," Lilly said. "But it was different than I ever had it."

"What do you mean your old bedroom?" Oliver said. "You've lived in the same house your whole life. I don't understand what you guys are talking about. Nothing's different. It's the same as it's always been."

"Is not," Lilly insisted. "I've got this giant freaking bruise on my stomach and no idea how it got there. I woke up at my parents' house, no idea how _I_ got there. My mom acted like – and _you_...I shouldn't even be here right now, and even if I was, you shouldn't be talking to me."

"Why wouldn't I talk to you?"

"Because you _hate my freaking guts_."

Oliver physically recoiled from her words. "I could never hate you," he said, like that, out of everything she'd said, was the most impossible.

"Trust me, you can," Lilly told him.

"Are we?" Hannah asked. They turned to her, and Hannah thought they'd almost forgotten that she was there. "Friends, I mean. Because I don't know either of you."

"You don't know me?" Lilly asked sharply, while Oliver just gaped at her.

Hannah shook her head no, her stomach sinking. She'd thought the same thing happened to her and Lilly, but if the other girl thought they should know each other... "Should I?"

"Yeah, we..." Lilly stopped herself. "You just went to bed and woke up and things were all different?" she asked. "That was it? That was all that happened?"

That wasn't enough? Miley wondered. What else was supposed to have happened? "Yeah. Why?"

Lilly shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind. And we met once after one of your concerts. It was only for a minute. It's okay you don't remember."

"No, it isn't," Oliver said. "I don't believe any of this. You guys are best friends, we've all been friends for years, you expect me to believe you don't remember that? That Miley doesn't know either of us?"

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Hannah asked.

"What?"

"Miley," she said, steeling herself. "Is it because I never got to be Hannah here?" Except he'd acted like he knew who Hannah was, so maybe –

"Of course you're Hannah," he said, and her insides went liquid with relief. Whatever had happened, she was still Hannah. That hadn't changed. It couldn't. She didn't know what she'd do if did, because being Hannah was everything to her. It was all she had.

"But no one here knows that," Oliver continued. "Except for us, of course."

"How can they not know?" she asked.

"Well, you...I mean, you're Miley, you know," he stuttered. "Here at school, and just, you know, normally, and then when you need to, you put on the Hannah wig, and then you're Hannah. But no one knows it's you."

"I put on a wig, and then I'm Hannah," Hannah repeated, disbelieving. "I put on a wig to keep people from knowing who I am."

"Right," Oliver said, nodding.

"And that _works?_" she asked incredulously.

"Of course it does," he said.

Hannah had woken up to find her father and her brother home, to her hair and house and life completely changed, but so far this was the hardest thing to believe. "I put on a wig and suddenly no one knows who I am," she said again, at the same time Lilly muttered, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"It's not stupid," Oliver protested. "It lets Miley have a normal life!"

"But women change their hair all the time," Hannah said. "It doesn't stop people from recognizing them. Especially not if they're _famous_." A horrible thought occurred to her. "Wait, is she...is Hannah not famous here?" Maybe Hannah just did karaoke or kids' birthday parties.

"Of course you're famous," Oliver said, scorn all over him.

Hannah really wished he'd stop attaching the words _of course_ to things. She slumped in the seat. It didn't make any sense. There was no way it would work. People would know who she was in five seconds. It wasn't like other celebrities hadn't tried, after all, and it never worked.

"Hannah," Lilly said.

"Don't call her that!" Oliver interrupted. "You have to call her Miley at school."

Hannah bristled. She _liked_ being called Hannah. It made all of this feel the tiniest bit less horrible. "She can call me Hannah. And anyway there isn't anyone here but us."

"I don't care," Oliver said. "You get called Miley when you're Miley and Hannah when you're Hannah, and both of you had better get used to that and remember it. I'm not going to have you slip up and wreck this for Miley. You might think keeping Hannah a secret is stupid, but Miley doesn't and it's still going to be a secret when she gets back, got it?"

When she gets back, Hannah thought, and felt like the room was turning sick circles around her, because she'd been so busy trying to understand what was happening to her now that she hadn't even thought about that. But, yes, she had to go back. Didn't she? "Do you think we will?" she whispered, somehow afraid that voicing the idea too loudly would pop it like a soap bubble. "Go back?"

She'd been asking Lilly but it was Oliver who answered. "Of course you will," he said, and Hannah instantly forgave him for using those words. "People don't just wake up in a different reality. It has to be some kind of mistake. A big one. And when whatever brought you here realizes it, you'll go back."

"So that's what this is?" Lilly asked. "We're in some kind of screwed up alternate reality?"

They all looked at each other, and Hannah could tell that none of them wanted to answer that. None of them wanted to say it out loud.

"Yes," Hannah said finally, and there it was. Real. Irrevocable. She could feel the truth of it splash across her like ice water. "That has to be it. We couldn't have both gone crazy. Not the same way at the same time."

"And it's not a dream," Lilly said. "It doesn't feel like a dream."

"It kind of feels like a dream to me," Oliver muttered.

"You don't have a giant bruise on your abdomen," Lilly said, glaring. "I think between that and all the pinching I did on the ride here, I would have woken up by now if it was a dream."

"We're in another reality," Hannah said, and put her head down on the desk for a moment. This was like something out of one of the bad sci-fi shows Jackson used to watch. "How long do you think we'll be here?"

"Well, it happened when you were asleep, right?" Oliver said. "So maybe the next time you go to sleep you'll switch back."

Miley raised her head, hopeful. "Do you think if we went to sleep right now it would work?"

"I don't know. You might all have to be asleep," Oliver reasoned. "I mean, they might have to be asleep too, you know?"

That wasn't the answer she wanted, but still. "Even if that's true, we only have to make it through today. That's not too bad." Lilly was shifting uncomfortably in her chair. "What?" Hannah asked her.

"Nothing!" Lilly said. "Oliver's probably right. I don't have any better ideas, anyway."

"Okay," Hannah said, turning to Oliver. "So tell us what we need to know to get through today."

———————————————

Oliver wouldn't stop talking. Like high school was so complicated. Please. They were going to miss the whole day anyway if he didn't shut the hell up soon. Lilly stopped listening about the time he started listing off all of their classes. She hadn't gone to her classes the first time around. She wasn't going to start in some universe that wasn't even the real one.

Besides, she had other things to worry about. Like how they probably wouldn't be switching back when they went to sleep tonight.

Because Hannah – no, Miley. Thinking about two Hannahs was too confusing. Hannah was Hannah and this girl was Miley. And Lilly she realized why that name had sounded familiar when her mother said it. Hannah had tried to get Lilly to call her that back when they first met.

It was October then. October of 2006. Just like it was now. Lilly had met Hannah on the beach, the Hannah from this world. So this _Miley_ hadn't gotten pulled back in time. Neither had Hannah. Which meant that Hannah had been in Lilly's world for a long time. For at least the six months Lilly had spent time with her, but Lilly was pretty sure even after that it had been Hannah. She'd seen Hannah around a couple times after, at parties or in clubs. And Hannah had always had this look in her eyes, like she was drowning or something, something Lilly didn't have name for, and that had still been there.

That meant it was a year and a half. And Hannah and Miley had switched places at the same time, so why the hell had Lilly gotten yanked back in time after a year and a half to switch with herself? She was _fourteen_, damn it. Fourteen sucked. And it didn't make sense.

Who was she kidding? None of this crap made sense.

But it wasn't like they were, like, taking turns with the whole universe switching thing, because then Lilly should have switched with herself at sixteen. Or maybe they were. Maybe Hannah figured out how to switch back here after a year and a half and whatever she'd done had gotten Lilly stuck here. Maybe she'd been trying to get back to the same time she'd left and Lilly had somehow gotten caught in the crossfire. If that was true, Lilly could force Hannah to tell her the trick of it. She could get back to her life before any time passed there.

But she'd have to wait a year and a half to find out. She'd have to spend a year and a half in this suckhole.

Oliver was drawing out a map of the school and trying to lecture her about how she wasn't friends with Amber and Ashley in this world. "Yeah, I got that," Lilly snapped. "Are we done yet?"

Oliver drew up, indignant, but then the bell rang and his face collapsed into doubt. "I guess we'd better go to class. We don't want them to call our parents. And I think there might be a class in here next period. Come on, I'll walk you guys."

Ugh. Hello. Lilly used to go to this school. She knew where shit was. But she followed him and Miley down the halls. God, she hated this place. She shouldn't be here. She should be out shopping for something to wear to tonight's party. But she wouldn't even be able to get into parties anymore, not the ones that mattered.

Oliver kept looking around nervously as they walked, like he was expecting someone to jump out and yell, "Surprise! Your friends aren't really in an alternate universe and you're an idiot for thinking they were!"

Yeah, you wish, Lilly thought.

She did too.

"Are you going in?" Oliver asked, gesturing at the classroom doorway. Miley was already inside, finding her chair on the seating chart Oliver had drawn. He was such a dork.

Lilly almost said she wasn't. Hell no, she wasn't. She wanted to ditch, just walk right out the door away from all of this. But she had no money, no car, no house, and her friends hated her. Where would she go?

"Whatever," she muttered, slinking past him and taking the seat behind Miley. A year and a half of this crap. Screw that. If she had to spend eighteen months in this world – maybe longer – she was not spending it here.

Kunkle started blathering about something and Lilly stared at the back of Miley's head, remembering Hannah's brown wig that day so long ago on the beach. The day Lilly's life had changed. Today.

Hannah had been her ticket out of obscurity once. She would be again.

Lilly just had to figure out how.

———————————————

The teacher was droning on about Revolutionary War. Hannah wouldn't have been able to pay attention even if she hadn't been pulled into an alternate dimension where her entire life was upside down. She had her – _Miley's_ cell phone out under her desk, glad she was in the back row in this class. The girl Lilly was sitting in front of her. In fact, they'd sat near each other in every class so far. Well, Oliver had said Lilly and Miley were best friends, so she guessed that made sense. And Hannah had to admit she kind of wanted to stay close to the other girl. What if Oliver was wrong about the sleeping thing? Hannah wanted to make sure if Lilly went back, she did too.

The phone wasn't proving to be very helpful. The address book had a few names she knew – Dad, Jackson, Traci, and now Lilly and Oliver – but everyone else in it was a mystery. Sarah? Jake? She knew a couple of Sarahs, everyone did, but there was no telling if this Sarah was one of them. Did she know a Jake? She couldn't remember.

Jesse wasn't in there. And Oliver hadn't said anything about him either, or about her having a boyfriend at all. She wished she could call him and hear his voice.

Then again...she tried picturing what his reaction would be if she told him about being from a different universe. He'd probably just smile and tell her how cute she was. Which she never got tired of hearing, but wouldn't exactly help her in this situation.

Or maybe he wouldn't do that. Maybe he was different here, too, like Jackson and Robby Ray and Lilly's friends, who Oliver had said really weren't here. Maybe it was better that she apparently didn't know Jesse at all. It would be nice to see him, but not if he was different. That would just make everything that much worse.

Thinking about all of this made her feel tired and more than a little sick. She knew she never should have eaten that omelet her – Miley's dad made. Okay, it probably wasn't the eggs, but they certainly weren't helping. Please let Oliver be right about the sleeping thing, she thought. Hannah was tempted to put her head down on the desk and test it right now, but his theory that Miley would need to be asleep too made sense, and Hannah knew there was no way the girl would have time to sleep right now, not with her schedule.

The teacher was on Paul Revere now and Hannah stifled a loud, impatient groan. These classes were interminable. So much wasted time. She could put up with it for a day, but she didn't see how Miley managed it day after day, week after week. Why sit in a classroom all day when she could be in the recording studio or filming a movie or out on tour?

Briefly, Hannah worried about how Miley would manage her life. There was so much going on today, would Miley be able to keep up? At least Miley was Hannah here, in some capacity anyway, and would be familiar with what went on. But were their careers on the same path? Were they doing the same things in both universes? Oliver hadn't said much about Hannah in this world and Hannah hadn't thought to ask at the time, too busy trying to keep up with what he _was_ telling her.

Hannah got out of the phone book and tried the internet. Blocked. Damn. Five minutes with Google would probably tell her more useful information than the whole hour with Oliver. He'd been worried about her and Lilly screwing up his friends' lives. Hannah was more concerned with his friend screwing up _hers_.

The Oprah interview could end up being a disaster. The signing would probably be fine, Miley had to have done those before. Same with the photo shoot. It was hard to screw up a photo shoot; you just had to show up and do what the photographer told you. The interviews for her new manager...Hannah hoped Miley would be smart enough to cancel those.

She hoped Miley would be smart enough to figure out what was going on in time to play along, so that Hannah didn't end up back home only to find herself locked up some place suffering from "exhaustion". She hoped they'd both only have to do this for one day, that tomorrow everything would be normal and they could go back to their own lives.

And she really hoped this class would end soon.

———————————————

The bell hadn't even finished ringing and Oliver was practically to the cafeteria already. This was the first time since this morning he was going to get to see Miley and Lilly, and he wanted to make sure...well, he didn't know what. He was still half-convinced this was all a big joke they were playing on him. He couldn't figure out why they would, but then he couldn't figure out why either of them did half the things they did. Girls.

But if this wasn't a joke, then...he arrived at the cafeteria and his brain skidded to a halt at the same time his feet did. He didn't know what he'd do then. He didn't know what there was to do.

The cafeteria was loud with students both coming and going. The three of them had second lunch. Oliver fought through the throngs and went straight to their usual table, forgoing the line. He wanted to watch and make sure he found Miley and Lilly, and then he'd get his food.

It was almost five minutes before Lilly finally emerged into the cafeteria. She stood just at the exit to the line and scanned the whole room. It took her three times looking back and forth before she saw him. Disappointment trickled through him. She hadn't remembered where they usually sat. Of course she wouldn't, if...But he'd thought maybe they'd switched back in the last few hours, or given up the joke, or something. Anything.

He raised a hand a little and waved hesitantly at her. He could tell she saw it, but she didn't acknowledge him in any way. Her eyes darted around the cafeteria again and stopped on Amber and Ashley. No, Oliver thought. She couldn't be that stupid, could she? Not after what had happened this morning. She took a step towards them, but before Oliver could get up to try intercepting her, she shook her head and zeroed back in on him. Thank god.

He sank back into his seat as she walked over, trying not to get offended by the annoyed look on her face. She didn't seem too happy about having to eat lunch with him. He couldn't quite believe that there was a world where they weren't friends.

"No way I'm eating this," Lilly said, sitting down and almost slamming her tray on the table. "Haven't these people ever heard of a salad bar?"

"I'll eat it," Oliver immediately volunteered, his eyes still pinned on the end of the lunch line. Where was Miley? She and Lilly had fourth period together, they should have come through the line together. He was just opening his mouth to ask Lilly where she was when Miley stepped into the room.

She did a repeat of Lilly's room-scanning routine, but she stopped before she'd even looked in their direction and headed off towards the other end of the cafeteria. Where was she going? She didn't even know anyone else here, where could she possi— Jackson.

Oliver watched as she juggled her tray with one hand, put the other on Jackson's shoulder, uncertainty in every action. He watched Jackson look up in confusion, and then he was pointing over at Oliver and Lilly. Miley glanced their way and Oliver vigorously gestured for her to come over.

Come on, he thought, just come over here. Don't talk to Jackson, he'll know something's up.

Maybe they should tell Jackson. No. He'd just think they were pranking him, or crazy, and Oliver wouldn't blame him. Not when he was still thinking that himself. And there wasn't any reason to tell him, not really. Tomorrow everything would be fine.

Miley was slowly making her way across the cafeteria. "Even the smell of this stuff is making me sick," Lilly complained, pushing her tray away, and maybe this wasn't a joke. Oliver had never known Lilly to turn down food of any kind.

He decided not to think about it right now, to just be glad that he wouldn't have to stand in line to get his own. It would give them more time to talk.

Miley sat down gingerly across from him, next to Lilly. "Can you believe they expect us to eat this stuff?" she said, clearly trying to break the ice. Ice that shouldn't even be there, because the three of them were best friends.

Lilly rolled her eyes. "I know, right? Like it would kill them to have salads or some decent sushi."

"You shouldn't try to talk to Jackson," Oliver said. "At least not until I have a chance to make sure you know how to act."

Miley flushed. "Sorry." She looked back over her shoulder at her brother. "It's just I don't get to see him very much, so I thought...Never mind."

A world where Miley and Jackson didn't see each other. And even weirder, a world where Miley was _bothered_ by that. "The two of you don't get along," he told her.

"I know that," Miley snapped, defensive, her cheeks going red. Was she _embarrassed?_ About not getting along with her brother? What for?

"Well, how am I supposed to know?" Oliver said, getting defensive too. She hadn't known anything else so far. "I'm just trying to help."

They sat there without saying anything for a while. Miley poked at her food, eating bits of it while Oliver inhaled Lilly's lunch and Lilly watched Amber and Ashley's table.

Miley looked up from her tray and around the room. "I just don't understand why this happened," she murmured, sounding like she was almost talking to herself. "Is there some point to it, some _reason?_ And why us? Why both of us?"

Oliver shook his head. That was the only part of this that made any sense. "It wasn't you," he said. "It was them." Their attention was suddenly riveted on him, twin stares that were so strong they were unnerving. He swallowed and said, "If one of them went, then both of them did."

They broke off staring at him and looked at each other, and he could see from the way they did it that they were strangers. It was there in the way they were sitting, parallel, apart, while Miley and Lilly had always leaned toward each other, the space between them coming and going like waves lapping the shore.

These two people didn't know each other, and that, more than anything else, convinced him this was real, that it wasn't a joke, that the people across from him weren't his friends. Miley and Lilly were _gone_. They were in some other _world_. The reality of it struck him then, hard and fast, fear and worry and sadness tearing at his throat.

Were they all right? Was anyone helping them, did they know what was going on? They were okay, it wasn't a dangerous place, it couldn't be, and surely they'd be all right. Just for one day and then they'd be back and this would just be one more thing, just one more crazy thing in the long list of crazy things that were always happening to them. They'd be okay, they had to be, they –

"Why?" Lilly was saying, except it wasn't Lilly. It was someone else. "Why both of them?"

"Because," Oliver said, dazed, still reeling. "Because they... Just because. They wouldn't have gone without each other."

"But," Lilly started, then ducked her head. "Never mind."

"Because they're friends?" Miley asked, staring at Oliver again, a weird mix of anticipation and disbelief in her eyes and posture.

"_Best_ friends," Oliver corrected. "And I always thought they – " He stopped.

"What?" Miley said.

Oliver blushed. "Nothing."

They cast appraising looks at each other and then turned their attention back to him, eyebrows raised.

"Just try to get through the rest of the day, okay?" he said, hastily changing the subject. He didn't want to tell them anything. He didn't want to talk to them anymore. He didn't want them here. "Don't talk to anyone unless you have to. Hide in your rooms when you get home. And go to bed early." He wanted his friends back. The sooner, the better.

———————————————

Hannah had to walk home from school. _Walk_. Another waste of time, and who ever heard of an international popstar _walking home from school_? That girl Lilly wasn't too happy about it either, but Oliver had insisted they did it every day, and Hannah had no choice but to believe him, especially since Jackson had whined so much about having to drive her this morning.

Oliver walked with them back to the neighborhood, which was good, because Hannah had been so confused and out of it that morning she hadn't paid any attention to the route Jackson had taken. Oliver left them with more instructions not to talk to anyone unless they had to. Hannah was glad when he and Lilly were both gone and she had a few minute to herself to prepare for what was coming.

The house finally came into view, looking so familiar a lump formed in Hannah's throat, because she knew it wasn't, really. The inside would be different.

Her steps slowed as she crossed the porch and she stood just outside the door for a minute until she could squash down the hope that when she went inside everything would be back to normal. But she must not have done very well, because when she went in and it wasn't, the disappointment still smarted.

Hannah kept her head down, trying not to look at all the changes as she made for the stairs and the unfamiliar bedroom at the top of them that would at least provide a sanctuary where she could try to wrap her mind around everything that was happening, everything Oliver had said. Little glimpses leaked in around the edges, though, and Hannah realized that some of the stuff here kind of reminded her of their house in Tennessee. The parts her mom had let her dad have some say in picking out, anyway.

When they'd moved, they'd been so busy her dad had gotten someone to come out and do the house, and Hannah had gotten the whole place redone again eight months ago, right before three different magazine had done cover stories on it. "Hannah's Hideaway," "How to Hannah-fy Your House," stuff like that. She'd needed something that fit her image. Even if it wasn't very homey.

"Miley, good, you're home," Robby Ray said, coming into the living room from the kitchen, and had he spent all _day_ in there? Hannah didn't think her father spent any longer in the kitchen than it took to grab a drink from the fridge. She stopped and waited to see what this strange version of him wanted. "How was school?"

Seriously? He wanted to talk about her day? Well, she didn't. "It was fine." Oliver had told her not to talk to anyone. But he hadn't told her how this whole double life thing worked, exactly. Was she Hannah every day after school? "Do I have anything I have to do tonight?" Was Robby Ray still her manager?

"Homework?" he said.

"I meant Hannah."

"Not tonight, bud." Great. He was all concerned again, like he had been this morning. "It's Thursday. Are you o—"

"I'm fine," she cut in. She did not want to hear that question. "I'm going upstairs to do that homework."

She didn't. She spent ten minutes face down on the bed, thinking very hard about nothing, and then she found Miley's laptop and started trying to figure out how much damage control she was going to have to do when she got back.

———————————————

Heather brought home pizza for dinner. With sausage on it. Lilly could practically feel her arteries clogging and her thighs expanding just looking at it. And then to top it off, Heather insisted they all eat together.

Lilly picked at the melted cheese oozing off the edge of her slice, grimacing when it coated her fingers in grease. Gross. She'd been off dairy for almost two years, and if she'd ever needed a reminder of why, this was doing a pretty good job.

"Aren't you hungry, Lilly?" Heather asked.

Lilly shrugged. "Not really." She ignored how her stomach was saying that was a lie. She wasn't eating this crap.

"First you skip breakfast and now dinner?" Her mother frowned. "That isn't like you."

Lilly shrugged, and god, this Lilly had to be a major pig. Heather kept acting like she expected Lilly to eat twice her body weight at every meal. Lilly was surprised this body wasn't like three hundred pounds.

Ben was sucking down his third slice and Heather moved on to talking about her day. Lilly tuned out after the first two sentences. She didn't think Ben was paying any more attention than she was, either. It was strange to see him like this. He looked the same as he had the last time she'd seen him, even though by now he should be a senior, taller. Probably hairier.

Lilly wiped her fingers on the napkin. The grease turned the white paper transparent. So gross. "So when's Dad coming home?" She almost wouldn't mind seeing him. It had always been her mother she'd fought with, her father who tried to smooth things over.

Ben had stopped eating. His mouth was hanging open, half-chewed pizza filling it. So. Freaking. Gross. Obviously his table manners were no different in this world.

"That's not funny, Lilly," Heather said. Her voice was clipped and unhappy.

"What isn't?" Lilly asked, wondering for a second if she'd said that thing about Ben's table manners out loud.

"I'd imagine your father is home already," her mother said. "You can call him after dinner if you'd like. Otherwise you'll be seeing him next Wednesday, like usual."

Lilly blinked. Call him? She'd see him when? What was Heather talking about?

Ben piled two more slices on his plate and picked the whole thing up. "I'm finishing dinner in my room," he said, glaring at her before he disappeared.

"I thought we had to eat 'as a family'," Lilly said, sarcastic, when her mother didn't stop him. "But I guess since Dad's not here either – "

"Lilly!"

The last time Lilly had heard her mother use that tone of voice, it had been followed by an ultimatum that Lilly would do as she was told as long as she lived in this house. Lilly didn't know what she'd done this time, but she couldn't afford to get kicked out. It wasn't like she could go crash at Amber or Ashley's, and it certainly wasn't like she had ten million dollars at her disposal anymore.

"Lilly, honey, are you okay?" Heather asked, her voice much gentler. "Are you...having trouble adjusting? I know it's been a while now, but sometimes we think we're all right with something and then later it turns out we really aren't. Do you want to talk about it?"

Lilly might have been willing to do that. If she had the faintest idea what it was. "Talk about what?" she asked cautiously. She had to be missing something big.

Heather cleared her throat. "The divorce, sweetheart."

Oh. The divorce. _The divorce_. "No," Lilly said. "I don't."

"You don't have to talk to me. You know I saw someone for a while in the beginning. I'm sure she could recommend someone who specializes in working with people your age. It might help to talk to someone who isn't part of the situation."

"I'm going to my room," Lilly said. She closed the door behind her and resisted the urge to kick it. Heather would put her in therapy for sure.

Her parents were divorced. Oliver. Damn him. He'd spent all day babbling about what classes they were in and how Hannah had to be a secret, and he hadn't thought to mention this?

It didn't matter. She didn't care. So what if she'd always thought her parents would stay married forever? This wasn't even her world. These weren't even her parents. Her parents were still married. Right?

Suddenly she realized that she didn't know. She hadn't talked to her parents in a year. They could have gotten divorced and she wouldn't know. And if she was stuck here, if she couldn't get back, she'd _never_ know. Somehow the uncertainty, the not knowing, was even worse than the idea of them divorcing. Because it didn't stop there. Ben here was younger than when she'd left her parents' house, but back home he would be graduating soon. She wouldn't know where he went to college. What if one of her parents had an accident? She wouldn't know when her grandma died.

She might not have talked to her family for the past year, but that hadn't been like this. They'd still been there. Maybe they didn't care what happened to her. Maybe she didn't care what happened to them. But she could have found out. And now she couldn't.

She might not ever go back, she might not ever know anything that happened to them after she'd stormed out of this house a year ago. They might as well be dead.

Lilly sat down on the bed and pulled off the cheap, ugly clothes, not able to stand wearing them one more second. She didn't care. She didn't care if she didn't know. Why should she? They didn't care about her. She didn't care about them. No maybe. That was how it was.

The bruise hurt when she moved. It had all day, but now it felt like it was spreading through her body, back and up and down. Lilly crawled into bed naked, exhausted. She wanted to shut this world out. She wanted all of this to go away.

———————————————

Hannah knew she should sleep. That was probably the best chance she had for this whole unbelievable situation to fix itself, for her to get back to her own universe. But she stayed awake in the darkened room, thinking back over what she'd done since getting back from school.

It hadn't been much. She'd looked up Hannah online, which had briefly made her feel better about the state Miley might be making of her life. Miley hadn't done as much as Hannah – no movies yet, only three albums out, and she didn't write any of her songs – but she knew how to handle herself. As long as she hadn't wigged out on Oprah about switching universes, today probably would have gone okay for her.

After that, Hannah had eaten the dinner Robby Ray cooked. Done the dishes, because apparently it was Miley's night. Pretended to do homework so Robby Ray wouldn't get upset. Listened to Jackson on the phone trying to talk a girl into going out with him and failing hard.

That was it. Her day usually didn't end until after eight, sometimes much later, but by eight tonight she'd already been home for five hours. More time wasted, a whole day wasted. How had Miley ever gotten famous when she spent all her time in school and doing homework?

But tonight reminded her a little of how things used to be, back before her mom died. After had been grief, and when that began to recede, she'd gotten serious about singing and Hannah had taken off. But before had been like tonight, just the four of them at home, dinner, chores, homework. Normal stuff. Boring.

Sometimes her dad had played the guitar and they sang along. Hannah used to watch her father then. He was always smiling, happy, but she knew he wasn't hearing them, not just them, he was hearing thousands of people screaming his name, he was remembering being on tour, remembering something more than normal. She could see he missed it, hungered for it. It made her hunger for it, too.

Didn't Miley feel that way?

She wondered why Miley put herself through all of this, the chores and homework and ridiculous disguise. It was holding her back, and Hannah couldn't understand it.

She didn't understand anything about this world. She was glad her mother wasn't here. It was bad enough Robby Ray and Jackson were.

She rolled over on her stomach and pulled a pillow over her head, staring at pitch black and praying for sleep. She didn't like it here. She didn't like this place, the way it tilted her life into something she couldn't recognize or comprehend.

I want to go home, she thought, directing it out to God, or the universe, or whatever force had brought her here. Just let me wake up in my own bed, in my own world. Just let me wake up in my own skin.

———————————————

**This will have either six or seven chapters (not as long as this one omg), and it's looking like I can do a chapter a week. So the next one will be up next Thursday, though hopefully earlier than this one was.**


	2. Don't Wanna Be Here

**Yeah, sorry. I was sick. And then I made cookies. Fresh snickerdoodles trump fic, y'all. That's just a fact of life.**

**Also! I probably should have said: this story will have only the smallest smidgeon bit of L/M. It is mostly gen. I'll probably write a (short) sequel at some point that deals with that, but if that's what you're reading for here...sorry. You might want to stop.**

**lita rocks LbC: Okay, I'm not quite sure I understood the question, but let me lay out the timeline. Miley goes into Amissverse in October of 2006. She is there with AV Lilly until canon Lilly comes in March of 2008. In the canon verse, both AV Hannah and AV Lilly arrive at the same time (October of 2006 again) because AV Lilly is pulled back in time (whereas canon Lilly went forward). So Miley and the other Lilly are in the same universe together, but AV Hannah and our Lilly never are. Does that make sense? Time travel is confusing. (Also, that is the only iCarly fic I've written. That fandom is hard. But if you're looking for good iCarly fic, you should read Chash's crossover with SPN. It's gen but seriously brilliant. No knowledge of SPN required beyond its premise. I can link you if you want.)**

**LadyTru: Awww, I love Oliver in the show. I mean, not season three Oliver, but that doesn't count. I don't like season three Lilly either. But that's because the writers FAIL and are destroying the characters, so I don't hold that against them. Also, yes, that is where she got the bruise. I would have forgotten about it myself had I not written a note in all caps like a year ago not to. Because I'm super organized like that. **

**estephany: I like them too! And don't get frustrated, because your English is really good. If you hadn't told me it wasn't your first language, I wouldn't have known.**

**Thank you so much for all of the comments. You guys are all way more awesome than I am. Seriously.**

———————————————

**Chapter Two: Don't Wanna Be Here**

———————————————

_she never stumbles,  
she's got no place to fall._

– Bob Dylan, _She Belongs To Me_

———————————————

**13 October 2006**

Hannah didn't remember until she opened her eyes and sat up, and then it all came in a rush, as strong as a riptide pulling her out to sea. The room was the same one she'd fallen asleep in. She sat in bed for a few minutes, fighting the desire to lay back down, to sleep until she woke up in the right one. Then she got up and went to shower. She was used to fulfilling her obligations and she'd hold up her end of this. Today that meant school.

Would Miley be trying to return the favor? Hannah had to trust that she would. She wouldn't have any reason to try to mess up Hannah's life, and from the way Oliver talked about her he thought she and Lilly were just about the two best people on the planet. Hannah was sure Miley would try her best, because that's what she was doing, and they were the same person, sort of, weren't they? She just wasn't sure if Miley's best would be enough.

Breakfast today was cereal – there was no one in the kitchen when she went downstairs and no indication that Robby Ray was cooking anything – and she was almost finished with hers when Jackson came stumbling down the stairs. He looked like he was still half-asleep, but immediately perked up when the back door opened and Robby Ray came in, red-faced and out of breath, his sweat-soaked shirt signaling he'd been out running.

"Daddy!" Jackson exclaimed. "Dear old Dad, the man I hold closest to my heart, you shining beacon of love, you. Have I mentioned how fabulous your hair is looking this morning?

"Whatever it is you want, you ain't getting it, boy," Robby Ray said.

"I'm shocked you'd think that of me, Dad," Jackson gasped. "Shocked and dismayed. Do you really think the only reason I'd ever compliment you is because I'm trying to get something from you?" His offense was so patently false that Hannah had to look away to keep from laughing.

Robby Ray stared at him a minute. "Yep," he said shortly. Hannah bit down on a smile.

"Dad!" Jackson whined. Robby Ray got a drink from the fridge and gulped it down, not relenting an inch. "Okay," Jackson said, giving in. "I just need a little cash for gas money, just a tiny, tiny _loan_. I swear I'll pay you back as soon as I get my paycheck – "

"Not gonna happen," Robby Ray told him.

"But I really need it!" Jackson begged.

"Nope," Robby Ray said.

"How much?" said Hannah.

Jackson stopped his pleas to Robby Ray, confused. "Uh, twenty dollars maybe?"

"I have twenty dollars."

Jackson crossed his arms over his chest, face scrunching up in annoyance. "That's great, Miles, way to rub it in."

"I meant I have twenty dollars you can have," Hannah clarified. Had Jackson been this slow on the uptake in her world? It had been so long since she spent time around him she didn't really remember.

Jackson and Robby Ray looked at each other, then back at her. "Wha-a-a-a-t?" they asked.

"I have twenty dollars you can have."

"I...," Jackson said. "I...but...I mean, thanks. I'll totally pay you back as soon as Rico pays me next week. I promise."

"Okay," Hannah said, shrugging, because what was twenty dollars? She spent more than that at Starbucks every day.

"Are you sure you want to do that, bud?" Robby Ray asked. He ignored Jackson's frantic gestures for him to stop talking. "You know you've got another week to go before you get your allowance."

No. Of course she didn't know that. Why the hell would she know that? Why the hell would she have an allowance? Even in this world she had to be a millionaire. She'd had three platinum albums and her last two tours had sold out!

Jackson's shoulders had slumped. He was obviously waiting for her to take back the offer. "Sure," Hannah said, and didn't try to stop the smile that came when he looked over at her, astonished but grateful. So what if she had an allowance? She'd spent years not noticing or caring what Jackson wanted and look what had happened. As far as she was concerned, he could have a lot more than twenty dollars.

"All right, but I don't want to hear you asking me for an advance in a couple days," Robby Ray said. "And don't forget, I'm picking you up from school today, bud. Lilly too, if she's going, which I expect she is." Hannah had no idea. She didn't even know where they'd be going. So she just nodded and waited for him to continue. "We'll stop by here so y'all can change and then we're going straight to San Diego. The concert starts at seven."

Hannah sat up straighter. A _concert_. She would get to perform tonight.

That would make sitting through eight hours of school completely worth it.

———————————————

Hannah Montana woke Lilly for the second time in two days. She groaned, half out of pain that stabbed under her ribs when she moved and half out of disappointment at finding herself still in this place, even if she'd been expecting it. She rolled over and slapped hard at the alarm clock but the noise didn't cut off. Lilly forced her eyes open and pushed herself upright with her arms to avoid further pain.

The noise wasn't coming from the alarm. It wouldn't be, Lilly realized, because she sure as hell hadn't set the thing last night. Hannah's screech was coming from the bookbag on the floor by the desk, sitting untouched where Lilly had thrown it after school yesterday. Lilly was definitely not a homework person.

She hauled herself out of bed and over to the bookbag, digging around in it until she found the cell phone and groaning when she moved too fast and it sent another twinge of pain racing across her stomach. She couldn't believe this girl had a Hannah Montana ringtone. God, what a loser. Hannah was so last year. No wonder Amber and Ashley wouldn't have anything to do with her. Lilly certainly wouldn't have if she had any choice in the matter.

It was Oliver. Lilly really didn't want to talk to him. There was only one reason he was calling. She answered it, barked, "Still here," then hung up and turned the damn thing off. She had her own problems to deal with, she wasn't going to sit around and listen to Oliver whine about how he missed his friends or how she better not screw up their lives. Like, hello. This Lilly's life was already crap. No money, no social status, stuck in some nowhere high school instead of out partying with the Hollywood elite. What was there to screw up?

Lilly had just gotten back in bed when Heather started banging on the door and screaming. "Lillian! Why are you still in bed! You have five minutes to be dressed and downstairs!"

Hannah Montana, the bruise, banging. It was turning into freaking _Groundhog Day_ over here.

"I'm not going!" Lilly yelled back. She'd never liked that movie.

The door swung open. Damn, she must have forgotten to lock it. Heather briskly crossed the room and laid a hand on Lilly's forehead. "No fever," she said. "And you look fine."

Yeah, right. She was fourteen, practically flat-chested, and at least ten pounds heavier than Lilly had ever been. And that wasn't even mentioning the clothes and make-up situation.

"I didn't say I was sick," Lilly snapped. She was, though. She was sick of this stupid body and this stupid world. No more playing along. "I said I wasn't going."

Heather put her hands on her hips and glared, apparently over whatever concern she'd felt last night. Big shocker there. "It's not optional, Lilly. You're going to school."

"Like hell." She flopped back on the bed and threw the covers over herself, only have them snatched back a second later.

"Excuse me?" Heather demanded, her eyes sparking with fury, and here was the mother Lilly remembered. "You do not speak to me that way. Get out of the bed." She grabbed Lilly's wrist and pulled her off the mattress, leaving Lilly with the choice to either stand up or crash to the floor. She picked standing. One bruise was bad enough."Now get ready for school. You're going. And one more word out of you and you'll be grounded for the next week."

Whatever. It wasn't like she had anywhere to go. Lilly yanked hard on her arm and it went flying out of Heather's grip, momentarily startling both of them.

"And that includes Miley's concert tonight," Heather added. So she knew about Miley being Hannah. Not much of a secret. Why didn't Hannah just take out a billboard?

"Like I care," Lilly said, standing stubbornly in place. She was expecting an explosion. She knew a button when she pushed it. Instead, Heather's attitude softened into concern.

"Is there something going on you're not telling me?" she asked. "I know how much you love going to Miley's concerts."

Please. She'd been to Hannah's concerts about a million times. Lilly was so over them. She went for another button. She knew all of her mother's by heart. "None of your business."

Bullseye. Anger on. "Watch it, Lilly. You're this close to spending the weekend in your room. Go downstairs and eat breakfast. You know how you get when your blood sugar is low. And I expect an apology when you finish."

"An apology? For what?" Lilly's voice rose. She was furious that Heather wasn't screaming at her like she should have been. "You're the one making problems! I just want you to leave me the hell alone!"

That was at least two or three buttons at once, but these had no effect. Heather wasn't mad now, only worried. "Lilly. What's wrong with you?"

Lilly hated it when her mother said that to her, she _hated_ it."Nothing is wrong with me!" she screamed. Heather used to ask her that all the time before she left home. Angry, upset, uncomprehending, Lilly had heard the whole range.

_What's wrong with you, Lilly? Why would you do something like that? _

_Where were you all night? You didn't call, what's wrong with you? _

_Were you __**drinking**__? What is wrong with you?_

"Why are you always saying that? There's_ nothing wrong with me_!"

There wasn't, damn it. Lilly just wanted to do something with her life. She wanted people to like her, she wanted to be someone. Rich. Famous. Important. She would do what she had to do get there. Heather had never understood that, she didn't understand that you had to look right, dress right, act right, know the right people, go to the right places. That was how you got to be somebody, and Lilly was going to be somebody. There wasn't anything wrong with her.

"There's nothing wrong with me, okay? What the hell's wrong with you?"

"That is enough, Lilly," her mother said, frost coating her words. "Get dressed. Now. You're going to school. We'll discuss this later when you've gotten control of yourself."

"I told you, I'm not going to school."

"You're going if I have to drag you out to the car in your pajamas!" Heather sighed and visibly let go of some of her anger. "Lilly, honey, I know there's something going on here. You haven't gotten up to go surfing in two days, you didn't eat yesterday – "

"I ate at school," Lilly lied, defensive. _What's wrong with you? You barely eat anymore._

" – you're not acting like yourself at all. Talk to me, sweetheart. Please. Tell me what's wrong. Whatever it is, I'll help you."

Oh, yeah. Sure. No problem. Heather could just zap her back into her life. "What do you care, anyway?"

"I'm your mother, Lilly. Of course I care."

Right. Lilly needed to get some money and get out of here. Her mom would stop caring pretty quick after that. "Whatever."

Heather shook her head and went to the door. "Get dressed. Eat something. I'll drive you so you're not late. And we'll talk about this once you've learned to be civil."

"Don't hold your breath," Lilly muttered under hers.

———————————————

Lilly's locker was next to Miley's and Miley was already there when Lilly arrived, Oliver hovering at her shoulder. She turned to him as Lilly approached them from behind. "I remember the combination, Oliver. And her schedule. It'll be fine. I'll see you in class, okay?"

He huffed and left after pointedly not looking at Lilly. Big loss, Lilly thought sarcastically. "Getting fed up with him?" she asked. She certainly was.

"No," Miley said. Despite her earlier words, the lock failed to open after Miley spun the combination and tugged on it. She groaned and started spinning the dial again. "He's nice. I've just got a little too much other stuff on my mind, you know?"

"No kidding."

The locker opened on Miley's second try and she peered into it, then at Lilly. "So we're still here."

"Yeah," Lilly said. She wasn't about to tell Miley they would be here a long time. Not yet. There had to be some way she could use that information to her advantage. And she didn't want Miley or Oliver asking questions about what had happened to Hannah the last year and a half, or finding out that Lilly had known her. God, Oliver. He'd be unbearable if he knew.

"I've got an allowance," Miley said.

Lilly smiled thinly. "My parents are divorced."

"You win," Miley said, her lips quirking, and for a second Lilly's smile was real. For a second everything didn't seem so overwhelmingly horrible. Then the bell rang.

Lilly sighed. "Another day..."

"Another ten thousand dollars lost because I'm wasting my time here," Miley finished. This time when they smiled at each other, bitter, it didn't help at all.

———————————————

Today's schedule, written in Oliver's chicken scratch, said second period was World History, and the walls of the classroom were plastered with maps and the flags of more countries than Hannah wanted to count. The teacher's name was C-something. Hannah couldn't make it out.

Oliver and Lilly were in the class with her and Oliver wouldn't stop turning around to check on her, anxious. What did he think she was going to do trapped in a desk all day? Give the other students a free concert? Start passing out flyers that said _I'm really Hannah Montana_?

The worst that could happen was a teacher would call on her and she wouldn't know the answer. And, honestly, she'd looked through Miley's notebooks and papers, and it wouldn't be the first time.

"Good morning, class!" The teacher sailed into the room and it was Mr. Corelli. The first thing Hannah thought was that he would recognize her, and she almost jerked Miley's notebook off the desk to cover her face. Then she realized how stupid that was. Of course he would recognize her. As Miley. Because Miley was in his class.

Hannah sat back in her desk, grinning a little, and watched him bounce around the classroom saying hello to everyone. It was good to see a familiar face, to see someone she was _supposed_ to see every day. She wished she'd had this class yesterday.

She had always liked Corelli, and here was at least one class where she didn't have to feel bad about Miley getting behind. Corelli had never made her do anything. His class must be a party.

Corelli made it to the front of the classroom and beamed out at the students like he was about to suggest they adjourn early and go to SeaWorld instead. Hannah wouldn't be surprised. "Okay, okay, okay," he said. "All eyes on me people, because today I'm going to be explaining how you're going to do the super fantastic project that is worth thirty – " He broke off to scrawl a giant 3 and 0 on the chalkboard. " – yes, thirty percent of your grade. So let's get to work."

Hannah clenched her hands on her legs. She hated how this world was, how everything had to be different, how every time she thought something would be slightly normal it turned out not to be.

———————————————

Lilly mostly spent her time in class watching Miley and planning. The other girl doodled things in her notebooks or stared out the windows, her face reflecting indescribable boredom. Occasionally she would glance at the board and write something down, but Lilly kind of doubted she was really taking notes. Hannah had never done school. The way she'd blown it off had made Lilly realize she didn't have to either.

This world was crazy and it sucked, but Lilly had to admit some things made more sense now.

She'd never understood why Hannah had wanted to be friends with her. She'd never understood that day at the beach, Hannah talking like she knew Lilly. She'd never understood the months that followed, Hannah bending over backwards to give Lilly whatever she wanted. She hadn't thought there was any way it could last, because there wasn't any reason for it to. There wasn't any reason for it to happen at all, for the biggest popstar in the world to suddenly decide that some random girl she met on the beach was her BFF.

But it made sense now. Hannah had gotten pulled into Lilly's world a year and a half ago and gone looking for her best friend.

So Lilly hadn't been a pet project or a charity case or a bet, or any of the other explanations Lilly had come up with during those months. She'd been a substitute.

She'd always thought...she'd never let herself believe anything Hannah said. Celebrities didn't pluck their friends from the general population. Stars didn't just like you for no reason. _People_ didn't just like you. You had to work at it. You had to be what they wanted or you were nothing.

Lilly had always assumed that Hannah was like everyone else, that she was friends with Lilly because it got her something, even if Lilly hadn't been able to figure out what that something was. And once Hannah got that something, that would be it.

End it first, that was what she'd thought. Get out on her terms before the other shoe dropped, before Hannah pulled the carpet out from under her and moved on to the next flavor of the week.

But Hannah wouldn't have. Because it hadn't been random. All Hannah had wanted was to have her friend back. She hadn't been planning to dump Lilly. She would have kept giving Lilly things, she would have kept trying to be Lilly's friend, if Lilly hadn't...

Maybe. Maybe she would have. But maybe Hannah hadn't liked her after all. Maybe she hadn't even thought of Lilly as a replacement, just a cheap imitation, one she would have gotten tired of.

Lilly moved in her seat, uncrossed her legs, recrossed them, stopped thinking about it.

The wig thing. That made sense now too. Hannah must have thought it would work because evidently it did here.

Looking at Miley, it was a little weird to see Hannah's face with brown hair. But not so weird that Lilly had any trouble recognizing her. And it wasn't like there weren't pictures around of Hannah when she was a kid, back before she'd gone blonde. It had taken Lilly, what, two minutes to realize who Hannah was when she'd pulled the wig stunt?

Only someone from this world could have thought wearing a wig would change who she was.

"Miss Truscott?"

Lilly jumped. Everyone was staring at her. Ms. Collins had spoken, her voice severe. Lilly lifted her chin, easily sliding on an arrogant, uncaring attitude. "What?" she demanded.

"Do you think you can tear your eyes away from the back of Miss Stewart's head and pay attention long enough to answer my question?" Collins asked.

The class giggled and Lilly's cheeks burned in spite of herself. She hated being laughed at. "No," she said. "Do you think you could make your class less boring? Maybe then I wouldn't have to watch Miley's hair grow instead."

The class was outright laughing now, but not at Lilly. Lilly glanced around in satisfaction and her eyes caught with Ashley's. The girl was laughing and Lilly smiled at her, just a little, and Ashley started to smile back. Then she seemed to remember herself. She stopped laughing and looked away.

"See me after class, Lilly," Collins said, thin-lipped.

"Whatever," Lilly muttered. She dropped her eyes to the blank paper on her desk, smarting over Ashley's slight. Just for a second they'd connected. Just for a second it had been like normal. She kind of missed Ashley. She wished she could talk to her, tell her what was going on. Lilly had never been stupid enough to tell Amber her secrets. Amber was the type of friend who used things against you. But Ashley...

She didn't notice the rest of class passing and waited until the other students had filed from the room before slowly approaching Collins's desk.

"Have you suddenly been possessed by a desire for detention, Miss Truscott?"

Detention. That meant a phone call home. Another fight with her mother. No Hannah concert. And no matter what Lilly had said to Heather that morning, she did care about getting to go to the concert. She'd had plenty of time since then to cool down and realize how important the concert would be. She needed to be seen with Hannah. She needed to get her picture taken and start networking Hannah's friends.

So she'd have to suck up. She might as well get used to it. She'd probably be doing it a lot over the next few months.

"No," she said. "Sorry. I didn't mean it. I...haven't been sleeping well."

"First Miley and now you?" Lilly raised an eyebrow. She had no clue what the woman was talking about. "Ms. Kunkle told me about the incident in her class," Collins explained, and yeah, that really cleared things up.

"Sorry," she repeated, almost gritting her teeth. She shouldn't have to apologize. She shouldn't have to be here.

"Don't let it happen again," Collins said. "Get some sleep."

Miley was waiting for her outside the classroom. Lilly hid her surprise.

"Trouble?" Miley asked.

"No. I fixed it."

"Good. That's...I was thinking, we probably don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves. We don't really want people to start asking question about why we're acting differently."

Suck up, Lilly reminded herself. To Miley most of all. "Yeah," she said. "I'll be more careful. This world is just so...irritating you know?" She could feel her frustration at it building up, pressing on the inside of her chest.

"Yeah. I do know," said Miley, rueful, and Lilly was surprised again, because somehow it helped to know that Miley did understand, that _someone_ did, that there was someone who hated this place as much as she did. Somehow it eased the pressure. "You ready for lunch?"

"Depends on what they're serving," Lilly grumbled. Miley's smile grew almost into a laugh and they went down the hall towards the cafeteria.

———————————————

Lunch was not much better than yesterday. There were fish sticks, and macaroni and cheese that clumped together, and the kind of canned fruit salad where all the fruit had turned to mush and everything tasted like the thin, sugary syrup that covered it. It was hard going from her own personal chef to this. She missed Pierre.

Oliver didn't seem to have any problems with it, digging in while he quizzed them non-stop about what had happened last night when they were home and this morning in the classes they didn't share. Hannah forced herself to eat – it wasn't too bad if she swallowed quickly and tried not to taste anything – and reassured him that no, no one suspected there was anything strange going on. Lilly poked at her food and gave one-word answers to Oliver's questions, not eating anything except a few bites of the fruit.

"Okay," Oliver said, finally satisfied that they hadn't spilled the Hannah secret during Geometry or something. "Miley, you have a concert tonight in San Diego."

"I know, Robby Ray told me this morning. He's picking me up right after school."

"Good. Lilly, you're going with her."

Lilly rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know. My mom was being a total bitch this morning and threatened to make me stay home."

"Do you guys think you'll be okay or do I need to go too?" Oliver asked. "Maybe I should go."

"God, no, we'll be fine," Lilly said, at the same time Hannah said, "I think I know how to give a concert." It wasn't like she was some amateur. But she did have a few questions about how this whole disguise thing worked. "So, does Hannah have an apartment or something?"

"An apartment?" Oliver stared at her blankly. "Why would she have an apartment?"

"Somewhere to put all of her stuff?" Hannah said. "Clothes? The wig? And wouldn't Miley need to have somewhere she could say Hannah lived?"

"What for?"

What did he mean, what for? Hannah had to live somewhere. People would notice if she didn't. "Don't people sell maps to celebrities' homes here?"

"Yeah."

"And what about paparazzi?" Lilly put in.

"What about them?"

Hannah looked at Lilly, who rolled her eyes again. "Don't they stalk celebrities? Wait outside their houses sometimes?"

"Sure," Oliver said. "So?"

"So aren't there people wondering where the hell Hannah lives?" Hannah asked in exasperation.

"I don't know." Oliver looked confused, then shrugged. "I never thought about it. I guess it's never come up."

It had never come up. And Miley put on a wig and no one recognized her. This world was so freaking weird. "What about her clothes and stuff?" Miley had to have more than what was in her room. Hannah had seen some of the outfits Miley wore as Hannah online and none of them were in her room at home.

"The clothes are all at the house," Oliver said.

"No, they aren't."

"Yeah, they are. They're in the closet."

"What closet?" They weren't in Miley's closet. Practically nothing was in Miley's closet.

"The Hannah closet. In Miley's room." He laughed a little. "Sorry. I forgot you wouldn't know. There's a door in the back of her closet that goes to another one. All the Hannah stuff is in there."

So her closet wasn't gone, just hidden. It was stupid, but she felt better knowing that. That closet was basically the whole reason they'd bought the house.

"Most of Lola's is in there too."

"Who's Lola?" Lilly asked.

"You are. You've got a wig, too. Actually, you have like ten of them. All different colors. They kind of make your head look like a lollipop, if you want to know the truth."

"You can't be serious," Lilly said, clearly not happy. "That's ridiculous. Who the hell thought of that idea?"

"You did. Because that way no one will know that you're Hannah's best friend."

"But why wouldn't she want – never mind," Lilly said. Her voice dropped so low Hannah could barely hear it and she knew Oliver couldn't. "I do _not_ understand these people. They are such freaks."

Seriously, Hannah thought. How did they even come up with this stuff? "Okay," she said. "I just have one question."

"What?"

"How do we put on the wigs?"

Oliver stared at her for a beat. "Yeah," he said. "I'm totally going with you guys."

———————————————

Another bobby pin gouged into Hannah's scalp. "Ow!" she yelped. "What was the point in you coming if you don't know how to do this?"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Oliver said, but he didn't sound sorry. Not how people normally did when Hannah complained about something. They always gushed apologies and scrambled to fix things. Oliver made it sound like the pain Hannah was in was her own fault and then he jabbed another bobby pin into her head. "This is girl stuff. Usually Lilly helps you."

Usually Lilly helps _Miley_, Hannah thought. She pushed his hands away. "Stop. Let me try. I can't do any worse than you."

"I could have told you not to let him near your head," Lilly said, emerging from the depths of Miley's Hannah closet with her arms full of clothes. There were a couple pairs of shoes balanced on top of the pile. "I'm still traumatized from the time he tried to give me a haircut. "

"Hey, I was _four_!" Oliver said.

"I know, and you came half an inch from poking out my left eye because you didn't know how to use scissors!" Lilly retorted.

"I did not!" Oliver protested. "It was at least an inch! "

"Uh, no, it wasn't, do I need to show you the scar from where you – "

"You remember that?" Hannah asked.

They looked at her, perplexed. "What?" Oliver said.

"You remember that?" she repeated. "Both of you. You both remember the exact same thing?"

"Oh," Oliver said, catching on. "I don't know, I..." He turned to Lilly. "We were at your house. It was almost Christmas and your mom was showing us how to cut out paper snowflakes."

Lilly nodded. "And then Ben came in covered in mud and Mom took him outside to spray him off with the hose because she'd just mopped the kitchen floor that morning."

"And while she was out there we decided your hair would look so much cooler if it was a snowflake too..."

"You do remember the same thing," Hannah said. "So not everything here is different. Not everything happened differently." Just all the important things.

"I wonder how far it goes," Oliver said. "You know? Like, was everything the same for a long time, or is there just that one thing that happened in both universes?"

"It had to be everything," Lilly said. "Or at least most things. Because I doubt if there was going to be one thing that happened in both of our universes it would be Oliver giving me the worst haircut known to man."

"It totally was not!" Oliver said. "Come on, you've seen the pictures of my mom from the 80s."

Lilly rolled her eyes but smiled a little. "Yeah, okay. Second worst haircut."

"Fourth worst. Maybe even fifth."

"All right," Hannah said. "So things were the same when you were younger." She wished they would focus. She didn't much care to hear them rehash a history she didn't share. And their bickering reminded her of the way she and Jackson used to act.

"But you never met us," Oliver said. "So things had to be different by the time you moved here."

"When was that?" Lilly asked.

"Seventh grade," said Oliver. "Miley moved here that summer."

That was the same too, Hannah thought. They'd moved to Malibu the summer before she turned thirteen. She would have been in seventh grade if she hadn't homeschooled. With Candice.

Maybe public school wouldn't have been such a bad idea.

"So sometime between when we were four and twelve," Lilly said. "Great. That really narrows it down." She tossed the pile of clothes into an empty chair. "Can I borrow these?"

Hannah shrugged. She didn't care. They weren't her clothes.

"Lola can," Oliver instructed. "Lilly can't."

"I wasn't asking _you_," Lilly sneered.

"I don't care," he said, staring her down. "A lot of Hannah's stuff is one of a kind. Lilly can't be seen wearing it."

Hannah let them argue it out and went back to the problem of the wig. It wasn't too complicated. She'd gotten her own hair pinned up and the wig cap on before Oliver had taken over, and now she thought it just needed a few more pins.

Oliver's phone rang just as she put in the last one and shook her head, tossing it around to make sure the wig would stay in place. Oliver groaned when he got off the phone. "That was my mom. She got tonight off and now she wants me to come home and watch my brother so she and my dad can go out."

Good, Hannah thought, relieved. He would look over her shoulder the whole night if he came, and pick at everything she did. She didn't want him pointing out everything she did differently from Miley, not tonight when she was finally doing something normal. "Go ahead. We'll be fine."

"Yeah, we got it, Oliver," Lilly said. Hannah thought she was relieved too.

Oliver obviously wasn't. "Okay, but...call me if there are any problems. And call me when you get back. I want to know everything that happens."

"Whatever," Lilly said, dismissing him to riffle through the clothes she'd piled on the chair and holding a shirt up to herself experimentally.

After a second, Oliver left, and Hannah put him out of her mind. She studied herself in the mirror, running a finger along the edge of the wig, trying to determine if it was still on straight. Oliver had jabbed her scalp with bobby pins so many times her whole head hurt, but she didn't care. She finally looked like herself again.

———————————————

The limo ride was perfect, and so was the dressing room. They'd put her name on the door. Hannah. She went up to the stage with Robby Ray and Lilly just to look it over, and it was exactly the same as it had been every time she'd played this place back home. The back-up dancers were there, excited to see her, and they all called her Hannah. It was unbelievable how amazing that felt.

"What do you think about doing a quick run-through, bud?" Robby Ray asked. "I know you all just did this a couple nights ago, but I think everyone could use a warm-up. You wanna start with _True Friend_?"

Hannah could have kicked herself. She'd been so focused on how good everything felt: the limo, the stadium, her clothes and hair. She'd felt so confident coming here to perform, like she was back on solid ground, that she'd forgotten the way this world took everything familiar and twisted it, forgotten to watch for the inevitable difference this universe insisted on.

Like the fact that she'd never heard of a song called _True Friend_.

Shit.

She blinked at Robby Ray and drew in a breath. All right, she told herself. Don't panic. She hadn't panicked when she'd had to learn how to manage her own career. She hadn't panicked when she woke up in another universe. She certainly wasn't going to panic just because she didn't know the words to some song, even if this was supposed to be the one place in this universe she knew what she was doing. She could handle this. She could handle everything.

"That sounds great," she said, forcing a smile. "Just perfect, and I really want to rehearse, it's just..." She looked around, then ran over to where Lilly was standing in the wings messing around on her phone. "It's just that Lilly is really craving one of those spinach patch salads from Delicias." Crap. Did Delicias exist in this world?

"Huh?" Lilly said.

"Just play along," Hannah hissed at her, grabbing her arm and towing her over to Robby Ray, whose face was a study in disbelief.

"_Lilly_," he said. "Is craving a _salad_?"

"Yeah," Lilly said, nodding seriously. "They're really good, and they only use organic ingredients."

Robby Ray remained unconvinced, so Hannah motioned to him, leaned in and whispered in his ear. "It's kind of a, you know, _female issue_."

Robby Ray's head bobbed up and down and he began backing away hastily. "Gotcha. Say no more. Really. Don't. I'll be back in a jiffy." He paused. "Do I, ah...should I get some chocolate too?"

Hannah shrugged. "Couldn't hurt." That should give her enough time.

"That was easy," Lilly said when he was gone.

Didn't take much the first time, either, Hannah thought. "Yeah. Thanks. Now I just need to go pull _True Friend_ and anything else I've never heard of and replace them with other songs an hour before the concert starts. Piece of cake."

"You've never..." Lilly stopped and shook her head. "Never mind."

Hannah cocked her head at the other girl, but she didn't have time to ask. She flashed a blank smile at her instead and turned back to dancers. "Okay, guys," she announced, raising her voice to make sure they all heard. "We're going to make a couple changes."

———————————————

Lilly remembered the first time she'd heard Hannah sing _True Friend_. It had been a concert just like this and she'd been backstage, just like this. Right before Hannah had gone on, she'd pulled Lilly aside and shyly said that she was singing a new song, that it Lilly's, and that she hoped Lilly liked it.

And then she'd gone out and sung _True Friend_ and Lilly had stood there, knowing that when Hannah asked she would say she loved it, but really all Lilly had been able to think was, But you don't even _know_ me.

She'd been right. Hannah hadn't known her and she hadn't known Hannah. They'd both mistaken the other for someone else.

Miley was showing two of the back-up dancers a series of steps. Lilly went back to the dressing room. She had about twenty angry voicemails on her phone from her mother. If she didn't call back soon she would probably be stuck in her room until she found a way back to her own universe.

Heather answered with, "Lilly? Where are you?" No mistaking that tone. Time for damage control.

"San Diego. With Miley."

"Lilly! You know you were supposed to come home first. You can't just run off to do whatever you want. I called you six times and you didn't call back, I was getting worried."

"I'm calling now." Okay, so she'd never been very good with damage control.

"That's not good enough, Lilly. And we still haven't finished our discussion from earlier."

Why did her mom always have to make such a big deal out of everything? Why couldn't she ever let anything go? "The concert's about to start. I have to go."

"We're going to talk about this later," Heather warned.

Whatever. She always wanted to talk. Like talking ever made anything better. You had to go out and make things better for yourself. Which was exactly what she intended to do. "Bye, mom."

She hung up and went to watch the concert. And no matter what happened, if Miley asked, Lilly would say that she'd loved it.

———————————————

It made Hannah's blood sing. After two long, disturbing, disorienting days, here she was in her element. She knew exactly what to do, every word, every note, everything right. Well. Mostly.

There was the wig, her head covered in sweat and itching under it, and every time she moved she worried that she could feel it slipping.

There were the back-up dancers. They were out of synch with her, forgetting moves on the songs she'd thrown at them an hour ago, and the choreography was different than she was expecting on the ones she hadn't. She was able to catch on fast enough to avoid crashing into any of them, but she knew it had to look sloppy.

The fans didn't seem to notice; they screamed the same as always. But Hannah was angry with herself for not thinking of this, for not realizing that nothing would be the same. She should have thought of it, should have insisted on taking the day off school to rehearse.

And then there was Robby Ray, who stood in the wings watching. She could feel his disapproval from the stage, and every time she left it for a costume change he tried to speak to her. She brushed him off and changed in the dressing room with its half-eaten spinach salad, checking her wig in the mirror every time.

Then she went back out, turned her helpless anger into energy, poured it out to the fans who responded by cheering harder. But even with their screams ringing in her ears, comforting, normal, she couldn't forget how she hated this place, how it couldn't let her have even this.

———————————————

If the alternative hadn't been staying at home with her mother, Lilly would've started wondering if coming to this thing was even worth it. No one of any importance had shown up and even if they had, they all would have thought her name was Lola and she had bright blue hair.

But then the concert ended and a familiar, nasal whine came from the doorway of Miley's dressing room. "Han-n-n-_ahhh_!" Traci. Perfect. Traci had loved her and she was crazy connected. Being on her good side was like having an open invitation to every event in Hollywood. And she could always ditch the wig and fake name later.

She and Hannah embraced each other and air-kissed each other's cheeks. "Hi, Traci."

"Traci, hi," Lilly gushed, moving across the room, ready to do the same. "It's so awesome you came!"

The look on Traci's face stopped her in her tracks. "Lola. Was I talking to you?" She turned to Miley. "I still don't understand what you see in her. But you were fabulous as always, darling. I just came by to tell you that and make sure you don't forget about my benefit tomorrow. It's – " She shot an unmistakably venomous look at Lilly. " – invitation only."

She kissed Miley's cheeks again and whirled out of the room without another word.

"Wow," Miley said. "She really doesn't like you."

Lilly sat down hard on the chair in front of the vanity. Traci hated Lilly. Amber and Ashley hated Lilly. _Lilly_ hated Lilly.

Amber and Ashley didn't matter. She'd be out of high school soon enough, and after that they wouldn't matter. She might even be better off without them. Amber had always been hitting her up for cash. And so what if she missed Ashley? Lilly had missed people before. She'd get over it.

Traci was the real blow. She knew everyone and no one wanted to piss off her daddy. She could get people – lots of people, _famous_ people – to go to a birthday party for her freaking cat. When Lilly turned thirteen, Oliver was the only one who showed up.

She wanted out of here. She didn't even mean this universe. Just this place in her life. She'd clawed her way out of it once. It wasn't fair to make her do it again.

But she would. "It's all right," she told Miley, thinking, She will.

———————————————

The aftermath of the concert was gloriously routine. It was like a balm after the mis-steps of the concert and Hannah bathed in it, soaked up the fans' cheers and signed autographs until her hand hurt the way it did after every concert. In those few minutes she almost could have forgotten she wasn't back home if not for Robby Ray's brooding presence at her shoulder, the difference this world always forced on everything, not letting her forget for even a moment. She ignored him the best she could and he let her get away with it until they were all in the limo pulling back on the highway.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?" Robby Ray asked.

Hannah played innocent. "What?"

"You know what. You pulled some of the songs, changed choreography...half the time your back-up dancers didn't know what was going on."

"I just felt like mixing things up a little." It hadn't been her fault they couldn't keep up.

"You should have talked to me about it first. You don't just go changing things whenever you want, it leads to situations like this. It's unprofessional."

Unprofessional. _He_ was going to call _her_ unprofessional? He was the one who had left on a honeymoon and basically never come back, leaving her without a manager.

Except, of course, _he_ hadn't. _He_ was still here. And Hannah didn't know why. "Sorry," she said sullenly. Was it only because he hadn't met Candice here? Or was it because he cared for Miley more than her father cared for her? Why was Jackson still around? Was Miley somehow better than she was, and so hadn't driven Jackson away?

Robby Ray sighed. "Look, Mile, we can work out something new if you're tired of this routine. But you need to let me know so I can take care of it. You need to let me do my job."

Hannah almost gave in, apologized again. But then she thought, For how long? How long in this world before he was gone and Miley was in the same situation she'd been? She raised her chin and met his eyes. "It's _my_ job. This is my career. I get to decide how it goes."

"I'm not disputing that, darlin'," Robby Ray said, taken aback. "But you need to let me handle the details like this. That's why I'm here."

"I can handle it."

"I'm not disputing that either, but look what happened tonight." Tonight had been fine. She'd killed. No one in the audience had even noticed the slip-ups. She thought she'd done a pretty good job considering she was in a _completely different freaking universe_. A _professional_ job. "Mile, I know you like to go into things full speed ahead without thinking about how it could end up, but one of these days you're going to bite off more than you can chew. You need to learn to stop and think things through before you mess up something more important than a concert."

She couldn't believe he had the nerve to lecture her about thinking things through when she knew that given half a chance he would take off across the world without thinking of anything. And she was angry that he was making her about her father this way. Because she was fine with her relationship with her father. Really, she was. She was fifteen, she didn't need her daddy to babysit her anymore. He'd gotten her started in this business and helped her climb to the top, and now he had his own life. That was fair. He'd given up his career to spend more time with his kids, but she couldn't expect him to keep sacrificing forever.

So she was fine with how things were. She really was. And she didn't need this universe, this man, showing her how things could be different, making her want things she didn't need and couldn't have.

"Fine. I'll work with – " Who was her choreographer here? " – the choreographer before the next show and get everything worked out."

Robby Ray nodded. "All right, if that's what you want. I'll call and set up some time for you."

"I can do it."

"Miley, what is wro—" Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Lilly stiffen. She'd forgotten the other girl was in the car or she wouldn't have fought with Robby Ray in front of her.

"Nothing," Hannah said quickly. "Fine. Never mind. You call. Just tell me when and where."

"It'll have to be after next week." Next week was too late. Please let next week be too late. "You and Lilly've got that science project to finish this weekend and then you have that history test next Thursday. Hannah will have to be on hold until then. You need at least a B."

On hold. What did that mean? He couldn't mean she wouldn't get to do anything, that she wouldn't get to perform at all. She'd go crazy with nothing but the pointlessness of school to fill her time. "I can do both." She'd fail the history test anyway, if she was still here. She hadn't looked at a textbook in two years, and history had never been her best subject. All those names and dates. Who cared?

"You sure can," Robby Ray said. "You can do the Hannah stuff right after you get a B on your test. That was our deal."

She didn't have a deal with him. She didn't make deals. She signed contracts.

Robby Ray's phone rang and Hannah was grateful when he checked the display, held up a finger, and took the call. She moved from her seat next to him and took one on the other side of the limo by Lilly.

Lilly gave her a sympathetic look and Hannah smiled tightly. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to drag you into my business." Hannah let her face and voice make it clear that this was in fact _her_ business, and it should stay that way.

"No problem," Lilly said, everything about her oozing casualness, like she hadn't understood Hannah's message, even though Hannah was quite sure she had. "It's not like I get along with my parents either. You should hear some of the blowouts I have with my mom."

Hannah relaxed a little, though she still didn't know what to make of the other girl. She might come from Hannah's world but she was as much of an unknown as the whole of this one. And she was strange. Lilly had said they'd met at a concert, but she didn't act like any fan Hannah had ever met. She hadn't seemed excited about this concert, either, or being backstage.

Then Hannah almost laughed at herself. Lilly was probably a little too preoccupied with the fact that she was in another universe to care that she got to hang out with Hannah Montana. What was it she'd said this morning? Her parents were divorced. Hannah wondered what else was different for her here, what pieces of her life she was missing.

They were stuck in this together. That had to mean something. Hannah glanced over at Robby Ray and found him watching them steadily as he spoke into the phone, his face troubled. "Can you believe I can't be a popstar again until I get a B on a history test?" she whispered to Lilly. "I think we landed in the universe where everyone is _freaking insane._"

Lilly snorted a laugh and then looked horrified at herself, which made Hannah laugh. "Seriously," Lilly said, recovering. They locked eyes and laughed again, the only two people in the world who were in on the joke, and Hannah found that even though she didn't know this girl, she was glad there was someone here to share this.

———————————————

Jackson was playing a video game on the couch when they got home. "What're you playing?" Hannah asked, flopping down next to him and sliding some of the bobby pins out of the wig. She hated that thing. It itched like crazy and made her head sweat, and the whole idea, the whole double identity thing, was stupid anyway. She'd spent half the concert worried the wig would fall off and she'd be exposed, and she still didn't see why Miley didn't just tell everyone she was Hannah and be done with it.

"What do you care?" Jackson scoffed, not taking his eyes off the television.

Hannah froze a second, tense, then pulled a few more bobby pins free. "Sorry. I was just asking." She winced as the last bobby pin scraped along skin sensitive from Oliver's earlier help, but then it was out and the wig came off. She tossed it on the coffee table in relief and peeled off the wig cap.

"Jackson," Robby Ray said, coming in and hanging up his phone. Thankfully, he'd stayed on that call the rest of the way back. "That producer I want for Miley's next album is coming in from New York for the weekend and I have to go into LA all day tomorrow to meet with him. I'm gonna need you to drive your sister to Traci's benefit."

"No!" Jackson howled. "No, no, no, no, no! Dad, you always do this! I've got tickets to the Bruins game tomorrow. I've been looking forward to this for two weeks, you can't expect me to drop everything just because – "

"Now, son, you know your sister has things she has to do," Robby Ray started.

Nerves squeezed at Hannah. She'd heard her father say things like that before, back in her own universe. Putting her needs ahead of Jackson's because hers played out on such a larger scale. And six months later, Jackson was gone. "Jackson doesn't have to drive me," she said.

They both stared at her. "He doesn't?" Robby Ray said.

"I don't?" Jackson asked.

"No," Hannah said. She starting pulling out the pins holding her hair up and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "I'll – " She was about to say she'd hire a car, but then she remembered she didn't have any money. Who ever heard of a millionaire with an allowance? Everything about this universe was ridiculous. "I just won't go. There'll be other benefits."

Neither one of them seemed to be able to stop staring at her. She yanked the rest of the pins out, shaking her hair free with what would have been relief if she wasn't still so worried about Jackson getting upset. "What?" she asked, because they were still staring, mouths open. "It's not like I haven't been to these things of Traci's before, and it's not fair to make Jackson cancel his plans just to drive me around. Especially since he already bought tickets." She'd been to tons of them, and they never really benefited anyone, anyway. They were just an excuse to see and be seen.

"You've been to these things before," Jackson said faintly.

"It's not fair to make Jackson...," Robby Ray said, sounding like he couldn't believe he'd heard her correctly.

"So you just won't go," Jackson finished.

"Right," Hannah said. Jackson looked so shocked that she added, "Are you okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?" Jackson said in disbelief.

"Miley, are you sure about this?" Robby Ray asked. "You gave him gas money this morning, the least he can do is – "

"He doesn't have to pay me back for that," Hannah broke in hurriedly, glancing at Jackson to make sure he wasn't getting upset again. "I'm sure." Jackson looked okay. Stunned still, but not upset or angry. "Hey, maybe...maybe I could go to the game with you."

The words came out of her mouth when the idea of it had only half-formed in her mind and she regretted them instantly as the surprise on Jackson's face was replaced with disgust. "No way, I'm not taking my little sister to a football game!" The words awful and annoying were implied by the way he said little sister. So maybe this wasn't a world where she didn't drive him away no matter what she did. Maybe a world like that didn't exist. "You don't even like football!"

"Jackson," Robby Ray warned.

"No, it's okay," Hannah said. She didn't feel worried anymore, just defeated, and very tired. "I think I'll go take a shower." She climbed the stairs slowly, the wig and wig cap dangling from one hand, bobby pins clutched in the other. She didn't let herself think about anything in the shower except how good the hot water felt washing the sweat from her skin and itch from her scalp.

The knock on her bedroom door came after she had put pajamas on and was trying to pull a comb through hair that really was just too long. She gave up on it and answered the door.

"Hey," Jackson said, looking uncomfortable.

"Hey," Hannah said, trying to figure out what was wrong this time. Did he need more money, maybe for the game tomorrow? She didn't think she had much left, but he could have it. "Do you need something?"

Jackson's mouth opened and shut a couple times before he got any words out. "No. I talked to dad."

"Oh." Hannah went and sat on the bed, taking up the comb again and attacking a section of her hair. "About what?"

Jackson hesitated a minute, then came over and sat next to her. "About...he said that you probably didn't want to go to the game with me because you suddenly like football."

"No," Hannah said.

"Miles, can I...why did you do that? Say I don't have to drive you? And why did you give me that money this morning?"

Hannah shrugged, tugged the comb through a tangle. "I had it and you needed it. It's not like I'm really going to miss twenty dollars." Even if she was on a budget.

"I know," Jackson said. "But usually you don't...I mean, you never..."

Hannah put the comb down. She wanted to tell him that it was different now, _she_ was different, she was sorry, and that if she had another chance she would take more care with him. But she didn't have another chance. She could go home tomorrow and everything would be back to normal. So she tried to explain the best she could when she couldn't really tell him anything.

"I know, it's just...You never know. Everything could be fine, you could think everything's fine, and then the next day people are gone and it isn't anymore. So I just wanted to do something to make sure things are okay for you."

They sat in silence a minute before Jackson spoke. "I think about her a lot, too."

Hannah looked up, followed his gaze to the picture of their mother on the bedside table. Oh. "Yeah," Hannah said, even though she didn't. She tried not to. She tried not to think about her mother, or Jackson, or her father, about how they'd all left, about how alone she was.

"So do you really want to go to the game with me?" Jackson asked.

"It's okay," Hannah said. "I know you'd rather go with your friends. I just thought...I just wanted to spend some time with you." Especially since she didn't know how much time she had here, if after tonight she'd ever get to spend any time with him at all.

"Well, I was just gonna go with Thor," Jackson said. "And, you know, I've been to football games with Thor before." He smiled at her. "I could probably stand to take my little sister to one instead."

"Yeah?" Hannah said, smiling back. She wanted to hug him. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten to hug her brother. But she held back, wondering how strange he'd think it. "Hey, do you think you could teach me about the game while we're there?"

"Of course I can," he said, looking so proud to have been asked that she thought, Forget it, and almost tackled him into a hug.

He grunted in surprise and then wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged back. "I can't wait," she told him, meaning it, because here was something that was worth the time she had to spend here. It wasn't another chance. But it was something. Something more than she'd had before.

"You can be so weird sometimes, Miley. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know," she said, and she'd gone to bed last night wishing as hard as she could that she would wake up in her own universe. Tonight she'd be wishing she wouldn't.

———————————————

**Sooo, yeah. I'd like to say the next chapter will be up Thursday, but probably Friday is more realistic. Or Sunday. Ish. (I know. I am so slack.)**

**Mascot Love was on last night. I miss season one. Season three seriously needs to stop sucking balls. Although the summary for the next episode does sound like the gayest thing ever, so maybe it will redeem itself. Yeah, probably not.**


	3. Complicated And Consuming

**It's Friday! Just, you know, the NEXT one. Okay, so clearly I was vastly underestimating how long it would take me to get these chapters done (this story is going to kill me omg). So let's say a week and a half to two weeks instead of one. Sorry. I'll try to get them up earlier if I can.**

**MoreThanACandle: Mmmm, I don't know about Miley wanting to be Hannah full-time because she never met Lilly. The timeline I'm working with Miley makes the decision in canon to be Hannah before she ever meets Lilly. In my mind, she came up with the idea before they moved to Malibu. Of course, I could be wrong, but that's the assumption I'm working from and honestly I've stopped caring about the actual show timeline since it's not like the show cares either. Because seriously, if Lilly has any more birthdays she's going to be a 20 year old sixth year senior. And I think that both of their lives are very different in the AV, just that Hannah has handled the differences somewhat better. Hannah would have been fine if they hadn't switched. (Well. Relatively.)**

**Stupid-Lollies: I know, right? Season three is so awful. And, like, I don't even mind that they went with Lilly/Oliver (Hello. I write cracked-out femslash AUs. Like I give a crap about canon ships.) but they've just completely destroyed the characters and it makes me so angry. Miley isn't faring all that well either. Bleh. Stupid show. I wish there wasn't going to be a season four, because if this season is any indication it's going to be unwatchable. But I do still love Jackson. He is criminally underappreciated by the other characters. One day I will write fic that makes them look like jackasses because of this.**

**BCRebel: Part of your comment made me laugh, because I read it right after I'd finished writing a certain section of this chapter. You'll see what I mean shortly. As for the catalyst...I don't know. I feel like half the answer to that is meta, and I'm not sure even I know what the other half is. Yeah, I realize that's not very helpful. SORRY.**

**dare121: I was going to write out a really long explanation about time travel and why Angel couldn't bring Lilly into the AV at the same time as Miley, but then I realized no one cares but me. So to give a SHORT answer to your question, there are actually several reasons why, but I think the easiest one to follow is that if Angel had done that, then events would have happened very differently that first year and a half in the AV and Miley would not have ended up on that stage on that night in that condition and the security guard never would have made his wish, which would mean that Angel wouldn't have been able to take Miley back and get Lilly in the first place. Does that make sense? (I will totally write out that long explanation if anyone wants. Because, um. I am a geek.) I guess the next question would be, why did I choose to make them AUs at all rather than (as the episode implies) saying that it was the same universe and the past had just been rewritten? And the answer to that is, believe it or not, I thought the AUs would LESS complicated, and also less cruel.**

**In case anyone cares – because, yes, I spend time looking this shit up – at the game, the Bruins are playing the Oregon Ducks, which they actually did on October 14, 2006 (and lost 20-30). That game was an away game for them, though; it isn't here.**

———————————————

**Chapter Three: Complicated and Consuming**

———————————————

_Where you begin  
in me  
I have never seen  
but I believe it now  
rising dark  
but clear_

– W.S. Merwin, "Lackawanna"

———————————————

**14 – 15 October 2006**

Hannah could tell even without opening her eyes that she was still there. Now that she knew what was going on she could sense the differences immediately. The sheets felt different, the room was lighter because the curtains here were sheer, it even _smelled_ different.

She didn't get up right away. She lay in bed and thought about what she was missing back home. It was Saturday, so there wasn't too much. Just the studio for a couple hours in the morning, a short charity concert with Jesse for the pediatric AIDS foundation in the afternoon, and whatever parties Traci convinced her she had to go to tonight. Not like yesterday. That had been packed, and she'd just have to hope that Miley had been able to cover everything.

Jesse. She hadn't thought about him at all yesterday. She liked him, but she knew he liked her more, and she knew that was part of his appeal. She was at the intersection of fifteen and famous, and she wasn't stupid. She knew how long relationships in both of those groups generally lasted and she wasn't going to risk falling in love. She wasn't going to risk getting her heart broken when things ended and he went away.

She should probably be jealous right now, but really she was more concerned with whether Miley would be able to handle her commitments than anything the girl might be doing with Hannah's boyfriend.

Hannah sighed and threw back the covers. There was no use worrying about any of it until she got back to her own universe. And she was going to make the most of the time she had in this one to do what she couldn't there, like spend time with Jackson. Just give me one more day here, she thought. Just today.

Robby Ray was downstairs in the kitchen making waffles, and even though it had been two days and she knew he would be there, she still wasn't expecting it, she was still a little surprised to see him. He looked surprised too. "What are you doing up?" he asked.

"It's seven o'clock," she said.

"It's Saturday," he said, like that made a difference, like she had time to sleep in on the weekends like some normal teenager.

"So what are the meetings with the producer guy about?" she asked. She wanted to know which producer but she didn't want to ask in case Miley was already supposed to know.

He eyed her a minute, then pulled a waffle from the waffle maker, put it on a plate, and handed it to her. "Just the next album. I know we've still gotta wrap up this one, but he's in pretty high demand right now. I want to go ahead and lay some groundwork."

So Miley was recording right now. Good. She could spend some time at the studio this morning before the football game, pay Miley back for what she'd be doing for Hannah. "Could you drop me off at the studio on your way?" she asked. She wondered what was going on this album, what had already been recorded, what was left to do. The songs she'd known last night were old to her, two albums back, and she hoped Miley was a quick learner, because she wouldn't know any of the material Hannah was recording now. Hannah had written or co-written most of the songs herself. Her father had other things to do.

Robby Ray got his waffle from the waffle iron and joined her at the table. "Are you sure you're feeling okay, bud?" he said.

Crap. Not that again. What had she said wrong? "Of course I am, why?"

"We don't have studio time this weekend. We were in there last weekend and you had Traci's thing today, plus the science project and studying for that test. Besides, I've got these meetings, I can't be there today."

That's why I wanted to be dropped off, Hannah thought. She hadn't had time for a day's vacation in two years, and here was Miley spending days in school and weekends on nothing, like being Hannah was something to pick up and put down on a whim, an extracurricular activity to fill a few hours on Friday nights. It must take her forever to put out an album. No wonder she was singing old material, and evidently she couldn't even handle laying down a couple tracks without her daddy there to hold her hand.

"Sorry, I must have gotten my dates mixed up," she muttered, and shoved a bite in her mouth. At least the waffles were good. They tasted familiar, kind of, like she'd had them before. The memory of the taste tickled at her mind and she was halfway through her plate before it came back to her.

She _had_ eaten these before. Her father had made them before, in Tennessee, after her mother had died. "Did you make these after Mom died?" she asked, to be sure.

He looked up, fork hovering in the air for a moment before he set it down on the edge of his plate. "Miley," he said.

"You did, didn't you?" Hannah said, remembering more now. She'd been wrong before. He hadn't burned everything, he'd gotten better, he'd – "You cooked a lot back then. All the time." He had done other things, too. Laundry. Dishes. Driven her to school every day and picked her up, brought her glasses of water when she had nightmares about Mama. She'd almost forgotten there was a time he took care of her like that.

"I cook all the time _now_," Robby Ray said, looking very concerned. "I'm gonna go get the thermometer. I'm worried about you."

Hannah shook her head. "You'll be late for your meetings."

"I can be late. Or cancel. You might need to go to the doctor."

Hannah just looked at him for a minute, wondering again how things had turned out this way here. What was it that made this man stay? What was it that made him be here this morning across the table from her, ready to drop everything if she had a fever? And what was it that made her father leave?

"I'm fine," she told him. "Go to your meetings. You were right, I just got up too early. I'll go back to sleep for a couple hours."

It took a minute, but eventually he nodded. "All right, but you call me if you need anything or start feeling bad."

She promised she would, and ate the rest of her waffle while he disappeared upstairs to finish getting ready, and nodded obediently when he came back down and instructed her to tell Jackson about the waffle batter in the fridge when he woke up.

A second later he was out the door and she was by herself. Hannah was surprised at how lonely it felt. Back home it was usually a relief when she found herself alone. It was a chance to decompress, to recover from having to be on all day. But now the house felt empty and strange, too quiet. She wished Jackson would get up.

For a while she went around and looked at things in the house, amazed at how unfamiliar everything still was. She had only been here two days, but she had taken in so much that it seemed like longer, like she should know everything in this house already.

Hannah ended up in Miley's room but couldn't bring herself to go through Miley's things. It felt too strange. Bad enough she was in this girl's body, her clothes, her life. She wouldn't riffle through her belongings, hoped Miley would extend the same courtesy to her.

It wasn't even eight before she was starting to feel a little stir-crazy from having nothing to do. Homework? She tossed that idea out pretty quick. She hadn't had any idea what was going on in most of Miley's classes the past two days. Miley would just have to put up with catching up on a couple days of work when she got back.

She went back downstairs and had another waffle, not thinking about the last time she'd had these, then finished making them from the rest of the batter, stacking the finished ones on a plate. She thought Jackson would just burn them if he tried to do it. She'd just poured the last of the batter into the waffle maker – it would only make a small one, there wasn't enough batter left for it to spread out to the edges – when Oliver called. "You're up," he said, and she swallowed a groan.

"Yeah."

"Good, because I was thinking we could go to the beach," he said. "That's what I usually do with Miley and Lilly, and it'll give me a chance to tell you guys more stuff you need to know. I'll stop by your house and then we can go get Li—go get her."

Hannah checked the clock on the microwave. It was still only eight-thirty. The game wasn't until noon. She'd lived in Malibu for over two years and the only times she'd been to the beach were for photo or video shoots. She was doing things here she couldn't do at home, and if she was being forced into wasting time, she might as well enjoy it. This could be her vacation. "Yeah," she said. "I'd love to."

———————————————

Oliver couldn't believe he'd ever thought these two girls were Miley and Lilly. Miley was never up before noon on a Saturday. But he was glad for that difference, at least, because his mom kept asking him why he wasn't out surfing with Lilly like they always did Saturday mornings, and Oliver didn't want to be alone with _her_. He would've just told his mom he was hanging out with Lilly and gone to the beach by himself, but she was totally the type of mom who called his friends' moms to check on things, and lying to her would end very, very badly. All moms were kind of like that, but his was worse on account of her being a detective. She said she got lied to all day at work, she wasn't about to put up with being lied to by her own family.

He really didn't want to spend time with either of them. Every time he looked at them they were still Miley and Lilly. It wasn't until they moved or spoke that he remembered they weren't, remembered all over again that his friends were gone. Had been gone for two days. Today was the third, and there was no way of knowing how long this would last, no way to know if Lilly and Miley were okay until it ended.

He didn't want to be reminded of that, and spending time around these girls reminded him constantly, but he had to do it. He needed to watch them. He couldn't help Miley and Lilly now, wherever they were, but he could make sure that things were okay here when they got back.

He leaned his surfboard against Miley's house and knocked, and Miley came to the door wearing one of Miley's favorite outfits, and for a second hope ran wild through him, because maybe that meant she was back. Surely the other girl would have picked something different to wear. But then she smiled at him, polite but distant, and he knew Miley was still gone.

He kept glancing at her on the way to Lilly's, little peeks. Something about the way she was walking was weird, the way she watched every person they passed like she was expecting them to attack. It bothered him, because it seemed familiar somehow, but out of place. "Why do you keep doing that?" he asked finally, exasperated.

"Doing what?" Miley said, startled.

"Staring at everyone like you think they're going to jump you. Relax. You're making me nervous."

Miley's mouth opened and closed. "I – Sorry. It's just so strange. I keep expecting them to recognize me."

At first, he thought she meant they would recognize that she wasn't really Miley, but a second later it dawned on him that she was talking about Hannah. That was when it clicked. This was how Miley acted when she was Hannah, that was why it seemed familiar. He'd never noticed it before, hadn't realized that Miley's whole stance changed, her body language.

"I've kind of gotten used to it at school, but just walking around outside and not having anybody..." She shook her head. "It's strange," she repeated.

"They're not going to recognize you," he told her, but that didn't stop her from staring at everyone they passed all the way to Lilly's house.

Heather looked delighted to see them. "I'm so glad you're here. Do you two know anything about what's been going on? Lilly's been acting so odd the last few days and she won't talk to me about it."

Miley and Oliver exchanged glances. "I think she's just a little stressed about school," Oliver said, mentally cursing Lilly. She hadn't said anything to him about her mom noticing things were different. He wondered if same thing was happening with Miley and she just wasn't saying.

"Then I think spending time with you guys and going surfing is exactly what Lilly needs," Heather said.

Lilly wasn't awake yet – Everything was backwards, Oliver thought – and he and Miley stood at the bottom of the stairs while Heather knocked on Lilly's door. "I'd send you in to wake her, but for some reason she's started sleeping in her underwear," Heather said, and Oliver squeezed his eyes shut against the mental image that accompanied her words. He really did not want to picture Lilly naked.

"Lilly? Lilly, get up," Heather called through the door. "Oliver and Miley are here to take you to the beach." Oliver couldn't hear what Lilly said back, but it must have been something, because Heather said, "Why not?" She paused, listening to Lilly's response, and then said, "I think we need to talk about this."

Oliver clenched his teeth. At least _try_ to act normal, he thought at Lilly.

There was another, longer pause. "Lilly?" Heather said.

The door opened. "Changed my mind," he heard Lilly say, and then she was coming down the stairs. "Let's get out of here," she muttered as she passed them.

"You need to stop acting like that," he hissed at her once they were out on the driveway. "Your mom knows there's something up."

"Leave me alone, Oliver." He really wished he could.

They got her surfboard from the garage and he had each of them take an end because one look at Lilly's face told him she wasn't going to do it by herself.

"I can't believe you made us carry this all the way here," Lilly complained, dropping her end of the surfboard into the sand as soon as they were on the beach. "We should have ditched it right after we left the house. No one's even going to use it."

"That board cost four hundred dollars, we're not just leaving it somewhere," Oliver told her. "And you're going to use it. I'll show you how to surf if you don't know." He took the front end of the board from Miley and tried to hand it to Lilly.

"No way," she said, taking a step back and letting the board fall to the ground when Oliver released it. "You're crazy if you think salt water is touching this hair. I just deep-conditioned it last night after I got it out of that stupid wig."

"What about me?" Miley asked.

"What?" Oliver said.

"Will you teach me?"

He looked from her to Lilly, who had laid out her towel and was now rubbing sunscreen on her arms and legs. Backwards, he thought. "I guess so." He didn't see anyone they knew on the beach, and he guessed it wouldn't be too weird for him to be showing Miley how to surf. It would actually be less weird than if someone caught him trying to teach Lilly. Lilly surfed better than he did.

They moved a few feet from where Lilly was tanning and put the boards down flat. He explained some of the basics to Miley and then had her practice lying stomach-down on the board and popping-up. "You learn quick," he told her, surprised at how fast she got the hang of it.

"I learn a concert's worth of dance routines in under a week," she said. "This is nothing. So can I get out on the water now?"

———————————————

"Are you _sure_ you want to do this?" Oliver asked for the tenth time as they paddled out from the shore.

"_Yes_," Hannah answered for the tenth time, rolling her eyes. "Why would I say I wanted to do it if I didn't?"

He stopped paddling and sat up astride his surfboard. "I don't know. It's just...Miley never liked doing anything like this.

Hannah copied him and sat on her borrowed surfboard. "Well, I do," she told him, then eyed the waves coming in from the horizon. They looked pretty big. "Maybe. I mean, I've never tried it, so how would I know?"

He gazed levelly at her. "You're very different from her." It didn't sound like a compliment or an insult, just a statement of fact.

"Believe me, I know," Hannah said. After the past few days it was hard to believe they had anything in common, let alone that they could somehow be the same person.

"All right," Oliver said. "Let's get out there, then." They paddled further out, and he showed her how to duck dive or roll when waves came, and he perched astride the board again once they were out as far as he wanted. "You need to practice popping-up again now that we're on the water."

"I want to try a wave," she said.

"Not yet," he argued. "You won't even be able to get up without falling over."

"Yes, I will. I have excellent balance." He smiled and ducked his head to keep from laughing. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing. But maybe you aren't so different. Miley gets that same look on her face when she's determined to do something that's against everyone's better judgment."

"Then you know better than to argue," Hannah said.

Oliver gave in and laughed. "Oh, yeah. But I should warn you things usually don't end well when she gets that look."

"I'll survive," Hannah said, then wondered what would happen if she didn't. Game over. Would she get a new life? Maybe that was what had happened, maybe that was how she ended up here. Maybe she'd hop from world to world and life to life forever.

"Here comes a good one," Oliver said, chasing away her morbid thoughts. She looked where he was pointing. The wave grew as it got closer to where they were. It was big. _Huge_, but she wasn't going to back down now, not after she'd made such a big deal out of wanting to surf one. "Start paddling."

She did, and he kept hollering instructions after her. "Paddle, paddle, paddle! Faster!" She glanced back over her shoulder every few seconds, the wave looming higher and closer. "Paddle, paddle – pop-up!"

She jumped up, the movement shakier than it had been on solid land. There was a second, maybe even two, where everything worked like it was supposed to. Hannah could feel the wave under her, the board broad and steady beneath her feet, sun and wind on her skin. She had time to think, I can do this.

Then the front edge of the board dipped and the rest of it bucked and she fell, hitting the water hard. The wave washed over her, tumbled her over and over until she couldn't tell which way was up. Her shoulder scraped against the bottom but the sand was gone an instant later as the force of the wave continued to spin her end over end. She opened her eyes, frantic, the salt water stinging at them, but all she could see were bubbles and her own limbs. She couldn't see the sky. She couldn't breathe. All the air had gotten pushed out of her and her lungs expanded and contracted in a frenzy, futilely trying to draw more in.

What would happen if she really died here? Would they switch back? Would Miley be fine while Hannah's body dropped where it stood? What would people say? She could imagine the headlines filled with words like exhaustion and dehydration, code for the drugs they'd look for but wouldn't find.

Or maybe she'd be fine, jumping into her own body, and it was Miley, in a dead one, who would vanish. Maybe they'd both die, her consciousness gone and Miley's body cold. Maybe they wouldn't switch back.

The water near her feet was brighter than the water near her head and a neon yellow line stretched from her ankle in that direction. She flipped herself over and kicked up, because it was up, she could see the sun now, burning like the white light at the end of a tunnel. The urge to breathe was too strong. She surrendered to it half a second before her head broke the surface, came up flailing and coughing, her nose and the back of her throat on fire.

She trashed her arms and legs to stay afloat, too disoriented to tread water right. The movement of her leg tugged on the leash and the surfboard skipped over the water, slamming into the back of her head and knocking her face into the water again. Her vision spiked a brilliant red, black around the edges. Water swamped over her and she swallowed another mouthful, part of it going down the wrong way, making her cough so violently her throat almost sealed shut. She reached an arm behind her and blindly hooked it over the surfboard, getting herself turned around so she could pull the upper half of her body on top of it.

"Miley, are you okay?" she heard Oliver yell from some distance away, and then splashing sounds as he swam towards her. Everything was blurry. Her ears were full of water. She thought Oliver was saying something else but he wasn't yelling and she couldn't make out the words.

Her coughing fit expended itself and lapsed into a wheeze. She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. Her hair was plastered across her face, the world alternating bars of dark wet hair and impossibly bright sunshine. All of her muscles were rubber, weak but still twitching from the adrenaline that had her heart racing. She brushed the hair away with a hand that was twice as heavy as usual. Her head spun as she lifted it up and the beach came into view.

Her eyes were tearing and her nose was running. She probably had snot all over her face. She probably looked like a drowned rat now and she must have looked like an idiot on the surfboard. People were going to...

She looked around. It was late morning on a Saturday, the beach was crowded, and she'd just wiped out spectacularly. And no one was looking in her direction, not one person. No one had taken a picture of it. It wouldn't be in the tabloids tomorrow. It wouldn't be the most watched video of the week on YouTube. No one cared, they hadn't even _noticed_. They didn't care because she wasn't Hannah, she didn't have to be Hannah. She could be Miley.

She rested her cheek against the damp surface of the surfboard and laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Her stomach, already sore from coughing, ached with the effort, but she didn't stop. She understood it now, why Miley would put up with all of this, the wig and the allowance and school. Miley did it for this, this freedom that she had forgotten. She could do anything she wanted and no one would care.

Oliver swam up beside her and threw his arms over the surfboard. "Are you okay?" he asked. His voice was distant and watery. She shook her head and worked her jaw until her ears popped. "That was a pretty big wipeout. I knew this was a bad idea."

She ducked under the water to rinse off the tears and snot and came up face-first, hair slicking back. "I'm great," she said. The back of her throat still stung, her eyes and nose, her shoulder. The aftertaste of the ocean was in her mouth, sharp like copper or blood. She felt lighter. Clean. Raw.

"Are you sure?" Oliver said. He touched her arm. "Your shoulder's all red."

Miley grinned at him. It was Saturday and she was on the beach instead of in the studio. She was a mess and she'd just made a fool of herself and she didn't care and neither did anyone else. And later she was going to a football game with her brother. "I'm perfect," she said. "Come on, I wanna try it again."

———————————————

The surfboard felt even heavier on the way back, and now it was wet and covered in sand. Lilly wasn't happy about helping to carry it. Miley was the only one who had used it. But she would haul dirty surfboards around if she had to. She'd done worse to curry favor.

Miley didn't seem to mind carrying the front end of it at all. She was much more cheerful than Lilly could see any reason for, given the fact that Miley had just spent the last hour falling off a surfboard. Her hands were all wrinkled from being in the water so long. Ew.

They split up from Oliver halfway back. Lilly could tell he wanted to go back with them all the way, but that would have meant another twenty minutes carrying his own surfboard, and Lilly could also tell he was exhausted. Probably from swimming after Miley for an hour. That girl couldn't stay on a surfboard to save her life.

"I'm glad Oliver thought of this," Miley said, resettling her grip on the surfboard, which made Lilly's end shift and sand rub against her side. "Aren't you?"

"Sure," Lilly agreed automatically, even though the only good things about this morning were avoiding her mother and evening out her tan.

Lilly didn't notice Miley had stopped walking until she tried to take another step forward and couldn't because the surfboard didn't move. Miley switched to hold it under her other arm, turning to face Lilly. Her damp hair was frizzing from the heat and salt. Lilly had made the right choice by not getting in the water. "Have you...have you ever thought maybe it's not so bad here?"

"_What_?" She was too shocked to hide her reaction.

"I guess that's a no, huh?" Miley said.

"You actually _like_ it here? But last night – "

"I know," Miley said quickly. "I know. This place is crazy. But it's...it's almost like a vacation." A _vacation_? Maybe if you liked taking a holiday in _hell_. "And I'm starting to think the whole double identity thing is actually really...I kind of wish I'd thought of it."

Holy shit. Holy. Shit. Was she serious?

"I kind of wish I could do it back home."

They weren't going back, not for a long time. But maybe that wouldn't matter. If Miley _liked_ having a double identity, if she wanted to keep it a secret, well, that was much bigger than anything Lilly'd had on Hannah last time. And if Miley really wanted to keep it quiet, she would pay big to protect it. Lilly could get her money back, maybe even more than she'd gotten before. That would go a long way towards making this world suck less.

But first she'd have to make sure that Miley really wanted to protect it. Kind of wasn't going to cut it. People didn't shell out millions for kind of. Lilly would have to convince her that the Hannah secret was the best idea anyone had ever thought of. And then, when the time was right, she would tell Miley that they weren't going back. That Miley could have this life for the rest of hers. As long as she agreed to Lilly's demands.

"Maybe you could," Lilly said. She wanted Miley to think about that, about what it would be like if she could keep this double identity thing for longer than a few days or weeks. She'd have it for at least a year and a half, though Lilly wouldn't tell her that part, that they might switch back in eighteen months. Miley would pay more if she thought she was paying for something permanent. "You couldn't make a Hannah, but you could make a Miley."

"No. It wouldn't work there."

It wouldn't. "Yeah, probably not. But, hell, you can always take a real vacation." She needed to know if there was something more to it than that. Miley wasn't going to pay to keep a secret identity if all she really wanted was some time off.

"It's not that," Miley said. "I mean, it is, sort of. She has time to go to the beach and hang out. But she also doesn't have to watch herself when she does. Every time I go out it's a production. Every time I set foot in public everyone's looking, asking for something. I have to think about everything I do, about what people are going to say."

Yeah, because you're _famous_, Lilly thought. Cry me a river.

"It's like that song from last night that I didn't know the words to. _Best of Both Worlds_. She gets all the good parts of Hannah and doesn't have to worry about the bad ones." Miley laughed a little, sounding unsure. "Sorry. I didn't mean to dump all that on you. It probably didn't even sense."

Sure it had. Lilly might not understand why anyone would want to keep their fame a secret, but she understood what it would mean for her if Miley did. That part made wonderful, perfect sense.

"It did," Lilly said, putting on her best, most sincere smile. "Definitely."

———————————————

They got all the snacks they could for twenty dollars, which at the stadium turned out to be two medium cokes and a thing of nachos they had to split. Miley wasn't used to having to worry about money. That part of this world was still ridiculous.

But the excitement jittering off of Jackson more than made up for it. Their seats were pretty crappy – something else Miley had never had to worry about – but she didn't care. She didn't even really care about the game. She tried to at first, tried to pay attention to Jackson's explanations of two point conversions and first downs, but before the first quarter – period? half? – was over she'd given up trying to keep fullbacks and halfbacks straight in her head and just let herself enjoy how happy he was.

Even before Hannah, they'd always fought. Just typical stuff, the way all siblings did. But that pattern, that habit of picking at each other, jabbing at flaws and weak spots, of only seeing each other as an annoyance, had become ingrained, and before they could grow out of it things had all gone wrong.

Once, when Miley was about six, she'd gone crying to her mother after Jackson put a garden snake down her shirt, tearfully insisting that she hated him. "You don't hate him," her mother said, hugging her and smoothing her hand over Miley's head. "You can't hate him. He's your brother."

"Can too," Miley said. "He's hits me and chases me and puts snakes and bugs on me and he's _mean_. I don't like him one bit."

"You don't have to like him," her mom said. "You just have to love him."

Miley hadn't really understood what she meant until Jackson was gone. For all that he'd lived to torment her, for all that they'd bickered constantly, she'd missed him. He was her brother.

He was her brother, and Miley didn't think she'd ever done one thing that was just to make him happy. If she went back to her world tomorrow, at least she'd done that, at least she'd done one good thing.

"...and then a horse does a dance on the fifty yardline," Jackson said.

"Uh huh," Miley said absently, and then, "Wait. What?"

Jackson laughed. "I knew you weren't paying attention."

"Sorry," Miley mumbled.

"You didn't have to come, you know," Jackson said. "I know you think football is boring."

"No, I'm having fun," Miley told him earnestly. "I really am. It's just...football's boring."

"Well, then why did you...I mean we could have..." He searched around for what to say, shifting in his seat, uncomfortable. "We could have done something else. Together." Miley understood his discomfort. It was probably the first time he'd ever suggested spending time with his sister voluntarily.

"But you wanted to do this," Miley said.

"But why did you?"

Down on the field, one of the players wearing a blue shirt went down under a pile of players wearing white. Miley forgot which color she was supposed to be rooting for.

Because you're my brother, she thought. Because I love you and I should have shown it better. I should have been nicer to you. We should have been nicer to each other.

"Jackson," she said, taking a chance because things had been the same for Lilly and Oliver when they were little. "Do you remember that day right before I started first grade when Mom took us down to Chattanooga to the aquarium? And they let kids touch the stingrays and we wanted to do it but we were too scared, so Mom put her hands on ours and we all touched them at the same time. And then we walked all the way up around that giant tank, and you said it was like climbing an underwater mountain. And after that we got sandwiches and ice cream and went to the park for a picnic and Mom let us eat the ice cream first because it was melting, and then when we drove back home you wanted to play that game where you draw a card and then you have to find the car that's on the card, but we'd lost all the cards except for the one with a red pickup truck on it, so we – "

"We just looked for red pickup trucks the whole way back," Jackson finished. "And I beat you by like ten. You were so bad at that game. Yeah, I remember."

Miley looked down at the field. One of the blue shirts had the ball and was running, dodging around all the boys in white. "Who else does?" she asked quietly.

Blue-shirt made it down to the end of the field, skidding over the giant gold letters that spelled out Bruins and everyone sitting around them jumped to their feet, screaming and clapping, but Miley didn't move. Neither did Jackson. He stayed where he was and stared at her, hard, until the field goal had been kicked and everyone else stopped cheering and sat back down. "Miley, you know I'm not going anywhere, right?" he said finally. Maybe, Miley thought. But I might.

She lifted one shoulder in answer to his question and he looked even more uncomfortable. "Is it hard?" she asked him, to change the subject and because she wished she had thought to ask before. "All the stuff you have to do? Because of Hannah, and..."

Jackson shrugged. "Of course it is. But we're family. And family is always there for each other."

That was what their parents had always said. Miley had just figured they were wrong, that it was one of those things they said that sounded nice but wasn't true in real life, like that broccoli would start tasting good if you ate enough of it.

"Plus," Jackson said. "Chicks really dig it when they find out I'm friends with Hannah." A laugh escaped from her throat like a startled bird. He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows, then got serious. "Let's just...next time, let's just do something we both like, okay?"

She probably wouldn't be here for next time, but just the fact that he wanted one felt like enough. Felt like she'd set something right between them here even if she couldn't do it in her own world.

"Please," she teased archly, feigning disdain but doing it badly because she felt so giddy she knew it had to be showing. "Are you suggesting that we have something in common?"

He laughed again. "Thank god," he said. "I was starting to think you'd been replaced by a pod person."

"Shut up," she laughed, shoving at his shoulder, thinking, Not a pod person. Just your sister.

"Hey, you're not gonna cry when I go away to college, are you?" he asked.

"You're gonna go to college?" she shot back, putting on her best expression of shock and disbelief. They laughed together, happiness bubbling up in Miley's chest, and this was the best day she could remember having in a very long time.

———————————————

Lilly skulked down the stairs and into the kitchen in search of bottled water. She stopped a foot through the door when she saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of bills, her checkbook, and a calculator in front of her. Heather hated paying bills. She'd always made Lilly's father do it.

Heather glanced up, then back down at the papers. "How was surfing?"

Lilly relaxed and moved towards the fridge. "Fine."

"That's it? You're not going to tell me about each and every wave you caught?"

"No." There was no bottled water. Stupid house. Stupid universe. "Can we go shopping?" She'd just finished pulling everything out of Lilly's dresser and closets, searching for anything decent. There was now a giant pile of clothes on the floor and the two outfits she was willing to wear on the bed.

"You just went shopping last weekend with Miley."

"But I didn't get anything."

"You came back with six bags!"

"Nothing _good_. Look, you don't have to go. Just give me some money. I'll go by myself."

"You're not going shopping."

"I need new clothes, Mom! Have you seen the crap that's in my closet lately? I can't be seen out in public in half of that."

"Watch your language, Lilly."

Crap? Her mom was getting upset over _crap_? God, she hated this place. "Can I just have some money?"

Heather sighed. She took off her reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "We can't afford to replace your entire wardrobe right now. You know things are tight financially. It's a lot more expensive to support two households than one."

Her mom didn't understand. She never had. Heather had always been popular, she hadn't had to work at it like Lilly. She hadn't had people whisper and then break into giggles as she walked by. She hadn't had Amber and Ashley making fun of her clothes and hair and how only _boys_ were supposed to like gross, sweaty things like skateboarding. She hadn't ever felt like everything about her was wrong. "But those clothes are – "

"Lilly! We all have to make sacrifices. Those clothes were good enough for you last week and they're good enough now. I'm sorry if you feel differently but unless my salary spontaneously doubles you're going to have to live with it."

No, she wouldn't. Screw this. She was going to get her money back just as soon as she could convince Miley that what she wanted more than anything else was to stay here and keep Hannah a secret. "Whatever."

"And I'd appreciate it if you'd change your attitude. The past few days your behavior has left a lot to be desired." Oh, yeah. She was getting her money and then she was getting out of here. "I'm not even sure I should let you go to Miley's tonight."

"Miley's?"

"Aren't you sleeping over there?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Perfect. The more time she could spend with Miley, the better. Not to mention the more time she could spend away from here. "I'm gonna go pack."

"Lilly, wait." She stopped, holding back her annoyance. She didn't want to set her mom off and end up having to stay here. "I wish you would tell me what's going on."

"Nothing's going on."

"Why won't you talk to me?"

And say what? Nothing that her mother would understand. "I don't have anything to say. Can I go now?"

Heather put her glasses back on. "Go."

———————————————

Even though the Bruins lost, Jackson's good mood held through the end of the game and on the drive back to the house, and so did Miley's. He dropped her off and left to go to work – Jackson had a job. Who knew? – and Robby Ray hadn't come back yet, so she was once again alone in the house. She didn't mind it this time. She needed time to process today, Friday, all of it. She needed time to think. To write.

There was a melody in her head, snatches of words that had been floating around since the beach. She found Miley's history notebook, turned to a blank page, and set it up at her desk with the history book open at random in case Robby Ray came back.

She was so absorbed in her writing that she didn't hear him when he did; he was suddenly there in the doorway, saying, "Hey, bud."

All thoughts of lyrics vanished. Miley flipped to a page in the notebook that was covered in history notes. "Hey. How were the meetings?"

"Good. They went real well."

"So does that mean I have a new producer?" Who was it? She didn't like not knowing, even though that was stupid. It wouldn't matter, she wouldn't be here then.

"Well, nothing's set in stone yet, but it's looking that way." She wondered if she should be leaving notes for Miley. _Fyi, your dad up and got you a new producer while you were in another universe. Thought you might like to know_. "So when's Lilly coming over?"

"She, ummm, she's...not?"

Wrong answer. Robby Ray came all the way into the room, sat next to her on the bed, and put a hand on her shoulder, his face filled with what Miley thought was a ridiculous amount of concern. "Is everything all right with you two?"

"Sure." She didn't have any problems with Lilly. Her problems were more of the thrust-into-an-alternate-universe-life-turned-upside-down variety.

"You're not in a fight?"

"No."

"Then why isn't she coming over? You two never miss a chance for a sleepover." They'd just seen each other that morning, wasn't that enough? "And you've got that science project to finish by Monday."

She might not have any problems with Lilly, but that didn't mean she wanted to spend a whole night with the girl. "We'll do it tomorrow. And I thought you wanted me to study for that history test."

"I do, but I'm not so mean as to make you miss out on Lilly-time to study on a Saturday night." He had no problem telling her she couldn't be Hannah until she studied, but cancelling a stupid sleepover was too harsh? Everything about this world was bizarre. "Besides, it looks like you've been up here studying since you and Jackson got back from the game. Are you telling me you'd rather keep doing that than have Lilly over?"

She could tell the next words out of his mouth were going to be a repeat of the 'are you feeling okay?' refrain and she rushed to forestall them. "No! Of course not. I'd much rather have Lilly come over. I'm calling her right now." He still looked on the verge of saying it, so she jumped off the bed and scooped her cell phone off the desk, quickly pulling up Lilly's number. "See? On the phone right now. Can't wait for her to get here!"

"That's more like it." He went to the door. "Tell her we're having sloppy joe for dinner and I'm making extra for her."

Miley cringed internally. Lilly wouldn't eat that. Miley hadn't missed the way she skipped lunch at school except for a few bites of fruit, or how she'd only nibbled at the spinach salad at the concert last night. "Uh, can we have a salad or something with that?"

"Well, sure, bud, I can throw one together if you really want one. You going on a health kick?"

"Sort of. Thanks." He disappeared down the hall just as Lilly answered with a confused hello. Miley took a breath. She didn't really want to do this and she didn't know how to go about it. She hadn't had a sleepover since Tennessee. "Lilly? This is going to sound weird but I need a favor. Robby Ray was just in here acting like he was going to send me in for psychiatric testing unless I invited you to sleep over tonight."

Lilly laughed a little. "Don't worry, after the last few days nothing sounds weird anymore. And I think I was already invited. My mother mentioned it earlier."

"I'm thinking it might be less hassle if we just go along with it."

"Fine with me. It's not like I had anything else to do tonight. Lilly's schedule isn't exactly jam-packed."

"Yeah." Miley flipped back to her half-finished song. She would rather spend the night on it. But she also wanted to try out more of this life Miley had made, get to do things she normally didn't. Like hang out with someone without having to get all dressed up and go out. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. It might be fun. Like surfing. "So you'll come?"

"I'll be there in fifteen," Lilly said, and hung up.

Great, Miley thought. Now she just had to figure out what the hell you did when you were hanging out with someone you didn't know all night.

———————————————

Another car was pulling into Miley's driveway just ahead of Lilly and her mother. A boy with sandy blond hair got out and waved at them before going into the house.

"Oliver said you're feeling stressed because of school," Heather was saying. "Are you worried about your grades? Or is it something else?"

Door number two, Lilly thought. Congratulations, you've won a no-expenses paid trip to another universe! "I'm not worried about school."

"Well, something's obviously bothering you."

"Nothing's bothering me except you!"

Heather's mouth tightened. "Get out of the car, Lilly. Go talk to Miley if you won't talk to me. If you haven't snapped out of this by the time you get home we're going to have a serious problem."

The house was different, but she was expecting that, and it smelled like cooking meat. "She's upstairs," the boy said from the couch, and Lilly was glad she knew where Miley's room would be and wouldn't have to wander around upstairs trying to find it.

Miley was at her desk, one of their textbooks and a notebook open in front of her.

"You're doing homework?" Lilly asked incredulously. She didn't know whether to be annoyed that she might have to go along with it or to be happy that Miley was apparently embracing this half of her life.

Miley flipped the notebook closed. "Not really."

"Who was that guy downstairs?"

"My dad?" Miley asked, confused. "You met him yesterday."

"No, the young one."

Miley's face cleared. "Oh, Jackson must be back from work. My brother."

Her brother. Lilly had forgotten that Hannah had one. She'd never met him. She hadn't met Robby Ray either, but Hannah had mentioned him once in a while, let something drop about a trip to Thailand or Bermuda. But she'd never said a word about her brother.

The conversation lagged into an awkward silence. Lilly dropped her overnight bag by the desk and gingerly sat down in the chair. It was so strange to be back here.

"Dinner should be ready soon," Miley said. "We're having sloppy joe. And salads."

"It smells good." It did. Sloppy joe used to be one of Lilly's favorites, but now she didn't eat meat if she could help it. She ignored the way this stomach was telling her it ate meat at every opportunity and didn't appreciate having been deprived of it the past few days.

They ate at the kitchen table while Miley's father and brother ate in the living room, watching a game on TV. Lilly stuck with salad, and when Miley asked if she was sure she didn't want anything else, Lilly just shrugged and said she'd eaten before she came over.

"How's your stomach?" Miley asked as they made their way back up to her room.

"What?" She'd die if it was growling loud enough for Miley to hear.

"Didn't you, um..." Miley gestured towards her stomach. "Didn't you say you had a bruise there, or something?"

"Oh. Yeah." She was surprised Miley remembered. "It's getting better. Turning yellow." It looked awful. She'd had to wear a one-piece to the beach this morning to cover it.

"I wonder how she got it."

Lilly shrugged. "Who knows." She didn't really care. They got back to the room and didn't know what to do with themselves. Hannah had always bent over backwards to try to make Lilly happy, offering her clothes and shoes and parties, but Miley just watched her like she was waiting for Lilly to make the first move.

"Can I check out the Hannah closet again?" Lilly asked. "I just went through Lilly's and it is seriously lacking."

"I...sure," Miley said, and followed her into it.

"You are so lucky," Lilly said, looking through a rack of tops while mentally cataloguing how much they cost. "It's like you have your own boutique in here. Lilly's clothes look like they came from the sale rack at Wal-Mart."

"No, they don't," Miley said. "Besides, this stuff is just for – "

"So you said it was cool if I borrow some, right?" Hannah had practically thrown clothes at Lilly the second she expressed any interest in them. And she'd paid attention to what Lilly liked. More things in similar styles had started appearing in Hannah's closet, Hannah ecstatic to lend or give them to Lilly even when she hadn't worn them once herself. Lilly didn't think Hannah knew she'd noticed that. And then there'd been the shopping sprees, Hannah inexplicably taking her out and buying her whatever she wanted. It had all been inexplicable.

"I don't know," Miley said, uncertain. "Oliver said – "

"Who cares?" Lilly didn't want to think about Oliver. She never wanted to think about Oliver.

"I think we should listen to him. What if someone did notice you wearing something only Hannah's supposed to have? They might figure out the secret."

Crap. She needed to make Miley think the secret was important and here she was asking her to risk it. Stupid. She could buy her own clothes later. But she wanted to wear these now. She needed to feel people watching her and know it was because she looked _good_, because she was what they wanted to be. "What if we went out?"

"Out?"

"Yeah. Hannah and Lola. It's Saturday, something has to be going on. You could call Traci, I bet she knows."

"Oh. I didn't...I kind of thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad to, you know, take a night off from Hannah."

That was a good thing, Lilly told herself. It meant Miley liked this half of the double life. But, ugh. All of this better turn out to be worth it. What were they going to do here all night, braid each other's hair?

"Sure," she said. "That's cool, too. Your dad probably wouldn't let us anyway." She let herself take one last look at the tops – maybe she could sell the surfboard and get enough money now to at least buy a couple decent outfits – and then made herself turn to Miley. "So what should we do?"

She wanted Miley to suggest something so that Lilly could agree and please her. This must have been how Hannah felt when she first brought Lilly to her house. Hannah had always done whatever Lilly wanted, her desire to make Lilly happy a palpable and incomprehensible thing.

Miley had several false starts, opening her mouth only to close it again, clearly at a loss for what to do with this unfamiliar girl in her house. Because she didn't know Lilly, didn't think she did. It was almost a relief to be a stranger to her. To not have her expecting Lilly to be something she never could, something she couldn't even guess.

"Got any good movies?" Lilly offered finally. Everyone loved movies, and whatever Miley picked could instantly become Lilly's favorite.

"I don't know," Miley said gratefully. "But let's find out."

———————————————

Movies were easy, something you could do together that didn't demand interaction. Miley made popcorn and they sat on Miley's bed in the dark and got through _Pirates of the Caribbean_ – Lilly just stopped herself from saying she liked the third one better – and half of _The Da Vinci Code_ before Miley spoke.

"What was it like for you?"

"What?" Lilly guiltily dropped the small handful of popcorn she'd just taken back in the bowl. Miley had already eaten half of it.

"What was it like back home?" Miley said.

"None of your business," Lilly snapped, and then regretted it. Miley didn't say anything, just turned back to the movie, but Lilly felt her cheeks burn anyway. Stupid. She was supposed to be making friends with Miley, not acting like a bitch every time Miley asked her a simple question. But she'd been surprised. Why had Miley asked? Hannah never had. Not once. She hadn't liked it when Lilly talked about her family, or how much she fought with her mom, or when she'd tried to bring Amber and Ashley along. It had made Amber hate Hannah.

They watched in silence for a moment. "Do you really want to know?" Lilly asked finally. Why would she? There wasn't any reason for her to care.

"Yes," Miley said. "I mean, you know what it was like for me."

Lilly took a napkin from under the popcorn bowl and wiped the fattening grease masquerading as butter off her hand. She couldn't believe she'd been about to eat any of that. "It was better," she said. "I had more money, lots of friends, better clothes..."

"And your family was together," Miley said.

Lilly crumpled up the napkin and dropped it on the bed between them. She focused on the TV screen. "My parents were together."

They didn't talk for the rest of the night.

———————————————

A wave of amazing smells woke her, along with the very vocal protests her stomach was making about how empty it was. Lilly splayed a hand across her middle and sent semi-coherent shut-up thoughts towards it.

This body got so damn hungry all the time. Her body was used to running on empty, skipping breakfast, a small salad for lunch, a few bites for dinner if she remembered or there were hors d'oeuvres at whichever party they'd scored an invite to. This body felt like it could eat three times what Lilly ate in a day at one meal and still have room left for dessert. Lilly hadn't felt hunger like this in years, and its constant ferocity wore at her.

She sat up, running a hand through her hair and checking the bed. It was empty. Not that Lilly could blame Miley for getting up when something downstairs smelled that good. Bacon. Pancakes. Sausage. Lilly wouldn't eat any of that, but a banana maybe, or an orange, something to keep the aroma of the other food from driving her crazy. She debated over getting dressed, but Miley and already seen her in these stupid pajamas last night, and she was too hungry to take the time.

The fact that Miley's father would also be there had somehow slipped her mind, and Lilly tensed uncomfortably when she saw him. She barely knew the man; it felt awkward and embarrassing having him see her like this. But he seemed not to share her unease. "Good timing, Lilly," he greeted her, and set two plates on the table at the place next to Miley, who smiled at her.

Lilly smiled back in reflex, then tried to convince herself it had been on purpose, because she wanted this girl to think they were friends. She seated herself in front of the plates, surveying their contents. The bigger one held scrambled eggs and hash browns, along with four strips of bacon. The smaller one had a stack of three pancakes and two sausage links on the side.

"That oughta get you started," Robby Ray said, returning to the stove.

Get her _started?_ She'd never be able to eat this much, and she started to tell him just how much she resented the suggestion that she would be such a giant pig as to try. But she was being nice. She was being polite. Once she made sure Miley was convinced she had to keep the Hannah secret, she wouldn't have to put up with this anymore. She wouldn't have to put up with anything. "Thanks, Mr. Stewart," she said instead, sickly sweet.

She stared down at the plate. She'd have to eat some of it now. A couple bites of egg couldn't hurt. They tasted better than they smelled. A few more, maybe, and then she'd stop. Maybe just one bite of bacon. She took it and almost moaned in pleasure. Bacon. It had been so long since she'd had bacon that she'd told herself it couldn't possibly taste as good as she remembered it tasting. It did.

She cut a bite from the pancakes and shoved it into her mouth before she'd even swallowed the bacon. Miley giggled and Lilly looked over at her. "What?" she mumbled through her mouthful.

Miley laughed harder. "You look like a squirrel," she informed Lilly, puffing out her cheeks in imitation.

Lilly swallowed her food as quickly as she could without choking on it, mortification racing under her skin. So much for not being a pig. She put her fork down. "What does that make you, a moose?" she shot back.

"Duh," Jackson said, coming off the stairs and wandering over to the table to steal a piece of bacon from Miley's plate. He scratched at his stomach through his shirt and yawned, showing bits of chewed-up bacon in his mouth. God, he was just as disgusting as Ben. "Of course she's a moose. And a chicken. There's pictures to prove it."

He took the seat across from Miley as Miley and Lilly exchanged a confused look. "What are you talking about, Jackson?" Miley asked.

"You don't remember that?" he said. He reached over the table to snag another piece of bacon and Miley pushed the whole plate towards him, a gesture that clearly surprised him even if he didn't comment on it. "The time Hannah had to go to the fashion show in a moose costume? Lilly, you were there, you have to remember it. She looked like the biggest idiot up there on the runway." He laughed. "Good times, good times."

Hannah Montana had been in a fashion show dressed in a _moose costume_? This time when Lilly looked at Miley she could tell they were both thinking the same thing. This universe was so _weird_.

"Jackson, leave your sister alone or you're not getting any pancakes," Robby Ray said.

"Lilly started it!" Jackson whined.

"And I'm ending it," his father answered firmly.

"It's all right," Miley said. "Jackson didn't mean anything by it."

There was surprise on Jackson's face again, and Lilly caught it on Robby Ray's as well. Jackson scooped the rest of the bacon off Miley's plate and shoved it in his mouth. "Man, I don't know what it is with this new leaf you've turned over, Miles," he said. "But I hope it stays turned."

Miley smiled, shy but completely, genuinely pleased. "Thanks."

No way to turn it back, Lilly thought. Not any time soon.

Robby Ray came over with plates for himself and Jackson. "You need seconds, Lilly?" he asked, and Lilly blinked down at her plates. They were empty. She'd been watching Miley and Jackson and hadn't even noticed that her body had gone on automatic and managed to clean them both.

"No," she said in horror. "No, I'm good."

He tucked into his own plate but frowned at her. "Are you sure? I was countin' on you having at least three helpings."

Lilly felt her face twist at the idea of eating so much. Miley cleared her throat and quickly said, "That was great, but we're gonna go upstairs and try to get some homework done."

Homework. Yeah, Lilly definitely needed to get her money back as soon as possible.

Upstairs, Lilly laid facedown on top of the sleeping bag and groaned into her pillow. "Hanging around your family could get dangerous," she complained.

"How so?" Miley asked, messing around over by her desk, and Lilly really hoped she'd been kidding about the homework.

"If I keep eating like that I'll turn into a blimp."

"Good," Miley said shortly. "You need to eat more." Lilly flipped over and glared at her. Where did she get off – "Don't look at me like that. I spend my time hanging out with movie stars, you think I'm not familiar with the eating habits of people who are barely consuming enough to keep themselves alive?"

_Bitch._ Just because they were stuck in this situation together did not give this snotty little popstar the right to – Nice. Lilly was being nice. She would put up with this shit until she was sure she could get her money, and then she'd tell this bitch exactly what she thought of her.

Although she had to admit, it was kind of nice not to have her stomach growling at her. Still. Miley didn't have any business getting up in Lilly's. She stared up at the ceiling until she got her anger under control enough that she thought she could say something without snapping at the girl. "So how come Jackson thought it was so weird you shared your bacon with him?" Total change of subject. That seemed safest.

Miley leaned back against her desk, half-sitting on it. "He's been like that every time I – " She shook her head. "I don't think the other Miley was very nice to him. I don't think they were nice to each other. He and her dad both get so shocked every time I do something even partly nice. I mean, who cares about a couple pieces of bacon, you know? But I guess they would have fought over it. My brother and I used to be like that."

"What happened?" Lilly asked.

"He, uh..." Miley pulled out the desk chair and sat down sideways in it, propping her chin on the chair back. "He ended up moving out. He had a lot of bad experiences with people using him to get to me, and one day he just..." She took a breath and gazed off across the room. "He told me he'd rather go live on the beach than have it happen again. So he did."

Damn, Lilly thought. That must have sucked. It always did when you found out people didn't love you as much as you'd thought they did.

"He lived on the beach?" she asked, blocking that other thought from her head. Was that why Hannah had always wanted to go to the beach? A couple times she'd even tried to get Lilly to take food down and leave it on a bench or scatter some change around in the sand. Lilly had always just thought it was one of those bizarre quirks famous people had.

"Yeah," Miley said. "I didn't really get to see him much after that. I missed him."

"I didn't see my parents much," Lilly said, instantly wishing she could stuff the words back in her mouth. Miley didn't need to know that. She wouldn't care.

"Oh," Miley said, covering her surprise quickly and well. "I...I'm sorry."

Lilly shrugged. "Whatever. It doesn't matter." She had money. She knew people. She was living the life everyone wanted. What did she need parents for?

"Yes, it does."

"How would you know?"

Miley looked away and Lilly thought of how she'd spent six months in and out of this house and hadn't seen Miley's father once. "Sorry. I didn't mean..."

"It must be hard to see them." There was no hint of a question in that.

Lilly stared down at her hands, which had started twisting around each other without her notice. She didn't know. She didn't know if it was hard. She didn't know what it was, and she didn't want to think about it to find out. "I haven't seen my dad. We see him Wednesdays and alternate weekends."

"Do you miss him?"

"I'm used to it," Lilly said.

The sentence hung in the air for a long minute, and Lilly could feel Miley absorbing its implications. It was another thing she should not have said.

"I went to a football game with Jackson yesterday," Miley said. "I don't know – I mean, we might not be here by Wednesday, but..." We'll be here, Lilly thought. For a lot longer than Wednesday. "Maybe if we are, I mean...you'll get to see him. At least for a little while."

Lilly didn't answer. She flattened her hands on her legs so they would be still. "My mother and I used to fight," she said. "All the time. But I don't think they did. Lilly and her mother."

She made herself look up. Miley was watching her, waiting for her to go on. "Do you ever wonder why things are so different here?" Lilly asked, because Miley was the only person she could.

"Every second for the past three days," Miley said.

———————————————

They spent twenty minutes staring at the glass tank full of earthworms, and then they called Oliver. Then they stared at the earthworms some more while they waited for him.

"Earthworms," Miley said. "Seriously?"

"They couldn't have picked something a little _less disgusting_?" Lilly said. One of the worms inched across the soil, leaving a trail of glistening slime behind it. "Oliver is totally going to have to do this project if he cares about their grades, because I am _not_ touching those things.

Miley took that as a challenge. She reached down and plucked the worm from the dirt, letting it dangle from her fingers as she swung her hand up towards Lilly's face. "Come on, haven't you ever gone fishing before?"

Lilly jumped back a few steps. "Ew, no. Why the hell would I ever do that?"

"It's fun," Miley said. "I'll take you sometime." She realized what a stupid thing it was to say right after she said it. They'd probably never see each other after they went back home. And Miley didn't have time to go fishing anyway.

Lilly was even more revolted. "No, thanks. Not if it involves touching those things. You know they poop in that dirt, right?"

Miley looked at the worm in her hand. Several particles of dark soil were stuck to its body. "Oh, so that probably means you _re-e-e-ally_ don't want it to touch you, huh?" She took a step towards Lilly.

Lilly backed away, slightly panicked. "Miley. You don't want to do that."

"Do what?" Miley asked innocently. She took two more steps towards the other girl, then another few as Lilly kept backing up.

"Miley, stop." She shrieked as Miley fake-lunged at her, the worm passing inches from Lilly's face. "Get away from me, you freak!"

Miley laughed. "You know, you really shouldn't insult the person holding the worm." She swooped it in close to Lilly's face again and Lilly let out another yelp, stumbling back a step and grabbing at Miley's arm to try and deflect the worm attack.

"What are you two doing?"

They both stopped and looked over at Oliver standing in the balcony doorway.

"Uh...science?" Miley tried. She grinned at Lilly's disbelieving laugh and Oliver's bewildered look.

"Yeah, right, trying to get worm poop all over me is _real_ scientific," Lilly said, knocking Miley's arm away.

Miley dropped the worm back in the tank, wiggling her dirty fingers at the girl instead. Lilly rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth turned up. "How do you know that's not the project?" Miley said. "'The effects of worm poop exposure on the skin of a human female.' Maybe it gets rid of wrinkles. We could revolutionize the beauty industry."

"I do _not_ have wrinkles!"

Oliver sighed. "Let's go find your notes," he said.

———————————————

It turned out the project was mostly done, although they had to call Lilly's mom and have her bring over Lilly's bookbag to find that out. They searched through Miley's notebooks first but couldn't find a copy of the assignment. "I know they have it," Oliver said. "They've been working on it. They were working on it the night bef—They were working on it Wednesday night."

So Lilly called her mother and pretended she'd forgotten her stuff, and once Heather dropped it off they found the five-page, front-and-back data collection worksheet in Lilly's Spanish notebook. "Why didn't you bring this when you came last night?" Oliver said, waving the stapled packet around.

Lilly shrugged. "I didn't know it was there. And I didn't think we'd really be doing the project."

The worksheet was filled out except for the six questions on the back of the last page. "Good," Miley said, thinking that way it wouldn't take too long to finish, and if the project got a bad grade it would still mostly be the other Miley and Lilly's fault.

"We don't have to write a paper about it, do we?" Lilly said. "I'm not writing a paper."

"I don't think so," Oliver said, reading over the instructions. They were all sitting at various point around Miley's bedroom: Lilly on the bed, Oliver on the floor leaning against it, Miley at the desk. The earthworms had been transferred to the corner of the desk. "No, wait. You have to write out your hypothesis and then write a paragraph each about how you did the experiment, what the results were, and then analyze what that means. It can't be more than one page."

Lilly groaned. "Why don't we just turn in the worksheet like it is? Who cares if they fail?"

"No way. It's not going to kill you to write three paragraphs."

"But we don't even know what the hypothesis is," Miley said.

"It's right here on the front page," Oliver said. "You just have to copy it. Come on, you guys, this isn't even a hard assignment." He took in their unconvinced looks. "And I'll help."

———————————————

Two and a half hours later, Miley eyed the back of the worksheet critically while Lilly finished typing the last few words Oliver dictated. Their handwriting almost matched, hers and the other Miley's. She didn't think anyone would notice the difference if they weren't looking for it.

It had taken them a while to figure things out, even with Oliver's help, and Miley had been surprised at how pleased she was when they did. She hadn't done anything like this in a long time. And it wasn't like she thought her life needed more math problems or anything, but she hadn't really minded doing this.

Lilly mashed a key on Miley's laptop. "There. Finished. Fina-effing-ly."

"Good," Oliver said. "Now what other homework do you guys have? Did you do the stuff for Ms. Kunkle's class yet?"

"Which one is Kunkle?" Miley asked, while Lilly threw herself back on the bed and declared, "This is bullshit. I'm not doing any more work. Their grades are so not my problem."

Oliver looked at Miley, who raised an eyebrow. She kind of agreed with Lilly.

"You know Miley's dad won't let her do Hannah stuff if she gets bad grades," he said. "I know she's doing all of your stuff. It's not fair for you to not even try to do hers."

He was right. She'd been telling herself that school didn't matter, but it mattered to Miley. Still, they'd been working a long time. "Let's take a break first." She tossed the worksheet on the desk, wondering what they were going to do with the earthworms now that the project was finished. Maybe Robby Ray or Jackson would want them for fishing. Thinking of Jackson reminded her of breakfast. "You don't know anything about Miley going to a fashion show dressed as a moose, do you?"

Oliver laughed. "Oh, yeah, man, that was a classic. She went to Make-A-Moose with Jackson and Dontzig's niece and got stuck in a moose costume and then she had to do the fashion show."

Lilly sat back up and began typing. "They make you dress up in a moose costume at Make-A-Moose?" Miley asked.

"No," Oliver said, just as Lilly started laughing.

"What?" Miley said.

Lilly turned the laptop around so Miley and Oliver could see the screen. There was a picture of Miley in, yes, a moose costume, blond hair peeking out under the head piece and a gold dress shoehorned over it. "You look good as a moose."

Miley made a face at her. "Yeah, well, you looked great as a squirrel." Lilly pretended to be offended and flipped the laptop back around, probably to look for more embarrassing pictures. "I still don't understand how she ended up in a moose costume in the first place," Miley said.

"Who knows?" Oliver said. "Miley's always ending up in costumes." He said it so dismissively, as though an international popstar showing up to a fashion show dressed as a moose could be classified under the heading of normal experiences. Miley didn't think she would ever understand this place. "I think that time had something to do with a bet with Jackson."

"I can't find any pictures of the chicken one," Lilly said.

"What chicken one?" Oliver asked.

"Jackson said something about Miley being a moose and a chicken," Miley said.

"Oh, that. There aren't any pictures of that online. She wasn't Hannah when that happened. That was because Miley and Lilly helped me get together with this girl, Becca Weller, but then the next day they thought she was going to break up with me, so they said I should break up with her first. So I was down on the beach with her getting ready to break up, but they realized she _wasn't_ going to break up with me and Miley needed to tell me but the only way she could get down the beach fast enough was if she parasailed from this boat Rico had rented, but he wouldn't let her do it unless she put on the chicken costume because he was trying to advertise his chicken wings."

Miley and Lilly both stared at him blankly. Miley was almost certain none of that had made any kind of sense. "So...she dressed up in a chicken suit and went parasailing down the beach in it just so she could stop you from breaking up with a girl you'd only been going out with one day?" Unbelievable.

"Yeah, of course," Oliver said. "I mean, Miley might screw things up by accident a lot because she does things without thinking, but she always does everything she can to fix them."

Great. That really inspired her with confidence about how Miley was taking care of things back home. Why didn't the other girl just start thinking first and stop screwing things up to begin with? The first few Hannah scandals had taught Miley that. Be careful. Watch what you're doing, because everyone else was. But it wasn't like that here. Still... "Doesn't she care when things like that happen? Like the fashion show. The gossip sites must have been making fun of her for weeks."

"Not really," Oliver said. "I don't think she cares that much. She cared more that she worked things out with Jackson. The stuff people say about Hannah doesn't really bother her. What do they know anyway?"

Miley wondered if everything that was important to her was just another costume to this girl. She'd sacrificed so much to get to where she was. Miley hadn't sacrificed anything at all.

"Like there was this one time when she tried to paint over this zit on a billboard," Oliver continued. "And..." He told them about that, and then about the time Jackson was her assistant, and the one when she and Lilly both liked the same guy.

He told them stories for hours until he had to go home to dinner. Somewhere in the middle of it Miley had to make herself stop caring about the havoc it seemed the other Miley wouldn't be able to help causing in her life. She would go crazy if she let herself imagine it, and she had survived scandals before, and people's ridicule. She would this time too, and maybe she should take a page from Miley's book, because what did they know anyway? Not this. Not this world or the people in it. They would never know this.

She left Lilly in her room and walked Oliver to the front door. "I didn't tell you guys all that for fun," Oliver said. "You need to know that stuff. Miley keeps a diary somewhere. You should try to find it."

It was the first time any of them had said anything to suggest that Miley and Lilly would be here longer than the next morning.

"And study for that history test," he added. The test was Thursday. Four days away. Twice as long as they'd been here so far.

"Oliver?" she asked. "Whose idea was it? Hannah, I mean. Was it her dad's, or..."

"No," Oliver said. "It was Miley's." She'd thought as much. "Don't forget about that test. And do Kunkle's homework."

Miley nodded slowly. Maybe Miley hadn't given up anything. She'd been smart enough and lucky enough to figure out a way not to, and Miley wouldn't take that from her. No matter what the other girl did back home, this strange, impossible life was worth protecting, and Miley thought it would be a comfort, when she was back in her own world, to know that one of them was living it. "I will," she promised.

———————————————

**Earlier this week there was an episode of Doc (...shut up) that had a teeny tiny Michael Cera on it, and now I really want HM/AD crossover fic. It's kind of like how the only thing Glee is doing is reawakening my desire to write HM using the premise from Popular. COME ON YOU KNOW IT WOULD BE AWESOME.**


	4. It All Feels Like A Fight

**OKAY CLEARLY I AM TOTAL FAIL. SORRY. THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS.**

**John Chubb: I don't know. I mean, I guess the "left turn" in this case would be Miley being (only) Hannah. But on the other hand, I feel like the universes are more different than that, and not everything in them was the same up until one point in time when Miley decided to just be Hannah or to be both. Even if you don't think Miley and Lilly are right when they say the double life thing wouldn't work in their world, and this Miley could have chosen to do that...why didn't she? What made her make a different choice than canon Miley? Because that's not as simple of a decision as whether to turn left or right. In any case, I'm extremely glad that this Miley won't ever know that this is the major/root difference between their worlds. I think it would crush her if she did.**

**mileymadness: Haaaa, that would be hilarious and awesome. That is exactly how this Lilly would react, too. Although I kind of doubt Miley would write stuff like that in her diary, because you know Lilly probably reads that thing on a regular basis. Those girls are all up in each other's business to an astonishing degree.**

**lita rocks LbC: I KNOW RIGHT. I think I started laughing around "What the shit is this." and didn't stop until the end. "It takes two of you guys to do that?" Hahaha, oh, Sam. Truly no one is as awesome as you. God, if I could write iCarly like that, I'd NEVER STOP. **

**You guys are all so awesome it makes me look bad. Thank you so much for all of your comments.**

———————————————

**Chapter Four: It All Feels Like A Fight**

———————————————

_I was much too far out all my life  
And not waving but drowning._

– Stevie Smith, "Not Waving But Drowning"

———————————————

**16 – 18 October 2006**

First thing Monday morning, Oliver asked, "Did you find the diary?"

"No," Miley said. She hadn't looked for it. It still didn't feel right to go into Miley's things more than she had to.

"Check under her mattress."

It wasn't under her mattress. No one hid their diary under their mattress. That was the first place everyone always looked. "I will."

"Did you study?"

"I studied." She had. Some. But none of it had made any sense, and the dates all got jumbled up in her head, and there had been that song to finish...

"Did you bring the project?" he asked Lilly.

"Chill out, Oliver. I have it right here." There was half an eye-roll in Miley's direction. Miley met it with a one-sided smile.

"All right," Oliver said. He took a deep breath and visibly forced himself to relax. "Okay. Sorry. I'm just...I'm just worried. About classes, and everything." About them. He didn't say it, but she heard it all the same.

"It's okay," she told him. "They'll be okay."

"Sorry," he said again.

The bell rang and they began to move down the hall. Miley didn't need to consult the schedule or check the map; she'd memorized both last night. The chaos of the halls seemed normal already, almost comforting, since it wasn't directed at her. She felt hidden in the middle of it, protected, nearly invisible, and she savored the still-novel sensation.

She thought she was the only one who felt that way. Beside her, Lilly held herself rigid, tense, as though she thought she was _too_ visible, like all eyes were on her, judging her. Miley knew that feeling well.

Amber and Ashley passed them going in the other direction. Lilly slowed down a bit and moved slightly to the side so that Oliver blocked her from their view. They aren't looking, Miley wanted to tell her. And if they are, they only see her.

But maybe that was what Lilly was afraid of. There were none of Miley's friends from home that she would have trusted to know her as anyone but Hannah.

Oliver hadn't seen anything, his gaze on something far away and his eyebrows drawn together in worry. "What?" he asked, catching her watching.

Miley smiled and shook her head. "Nothing," she told him, and thought, I wish I'd known you.

———————————————

No one noticed when she walked down the hall, or stood at her locker, or took her seat in class. It was probably a good thing, with what she had on. Definitely a good thing when it came to Amber and Ashley. She knew what they would say, what they had said, what she had said. But this had been _her_ school for the time she'd been here. She and Amber and Ashley had ruled it, and now no one noticed when she walked down the hall. She wasn't important enough to notice. And she wouldn't be until she changed things.

Lilly turned away from staring out the window and found a tiny square of folded paper in the middle of her notebook. She glanced around, saw Miley's raised eyebrow and raised one back. Miley's eyes darted to the slip of paper. Lilly unfolded it, read, _Cheer up. Only seven more hours to go!_

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. Miley's eyebrow edged up further and a smile started in her eyes.

Yesterday, after Oliver left, Miley had come back upstairs. "I almost feel like I should apologize to you," she said.

"What for?" Lilly asked.

"All those crazy things Miley made Lilly do."

Lilly shrugged, uneasy. What did they have to do with those girls? "They're friends. And that's what friends do for each other, right?" she said, even though in her experience it was not.

"Right," Miley said, but she sounded as uncertain as Lilly felt.

Lilly wrote back. _You should change careers. Motivational speaker._

Miley made a face at Lilly when she read it. She scribbled something and tossed the scrap of paper back on Lilly's desk. _Be nice. I have worms and I know how to use them._ Lilly gave a dramatic shudder and Miley snickered. Lilly couldn't help grinning.

"Lilly. Miley. How many times do I have to ask you not to pass notes in class before you actually listen?" Collins said. They both looked up at her in complete surprise. Lilly had forgotten that she and the rest of the class were there.

"This is the first time!" she protested.

"Today, maybe," Collins said, narrowed eyes signaling her patience was wearing thin. "One more time and you both get detention and I'm moving your desk to opposite sides of the room." She went back to the lecture and Lilly slumped down in her chair, unsettled. She was getting used to people pointing how different she was, the disapproval that was clear every time they did. It felt strange to be caught doing something right. Oliver would probably be proud, but Lilly didn't like it. They were not those other girls. She was not that other Lilly.

Another note landed on her desk. _Cheer up_, it said. _Only six hours, fifty-five minutes to go!_

Lilly folded the note back into a tiny square. She didn't let herself smile or look in Miley's direction.

———————————————

School went much faster now that she was paying attention. Too fast, in fact. Miley was so _behind_. She had dismissed school as unimportant, and everyone around her had let her. They had agreed, at least tacitly, that it was, or that it was less important than so many of the other things that ate her time. But so far today she'd spent four class periods furiously scribbling down everything Miley's teachers wrote on the board and she'd only understood ten percent of it.

She was two years behind, maybe more. She had a sixth grade education. Sixth grade. All the other kids were relaxed, laughing and joking before class. And bored out of their minds once it started, secure from having been there last week, last month, last year. Miley felt like she was sprinting the whole day, racing to catch up. She was out of her depth. The last time she'd felt that way had been the day her father left for his honeymoon.

She hated it.

So she wrote down _everything_, even when her hand started cramping up from writing so much. She'd figured things out last time. She could do it this time. She _would_ do it this time. She wasn't going to let Robby Ray take Hannah away from her or Miley. No one and nothing was going to do that, not even whatever had brought her to this place.

Kunkle put something else about the circulatory system up on the board and Miley copied it down. She didn't understand it, but she would. She would.

———————————————

"Okay," Oliver said at lunch. "I guess we can rule out the sleep thing. It's been four days."

"I don't want my banana," Miley announced. "Either of you guys want it?"

"Any ideas why you haven't gone back yet?" Oliver persisted.

"Lilly? You want my banana?" Lilly took it so she would shut up about it. Oliver was asking dangerous questions. Lilly didn't want either of them stumbling on the idea that they wouldn't be going back anytime soon.

"Maybe we have to do something," she said.

Miley and Oliver stared at her. "Do something? Like what?" Oliver said.

Lilly shrugged. "How should I know?" She peeled the banana and ate it quickly, trying to look like she didn't care if they listened to her suggestion or not.

"Or," Miley was saying slowly. "Maybe _they_ have to do something."

Why hadn't she thought of that? Even better. That way they wouldn't have to waste time trying to do things to get them sent back. "Yes," Lilly said immediately.

"Do _what?_" Oliver asked again. "And what makes you think they'd have to do it and not you?"

"You were the one who said it wasn't us," Miley pointed out. "So if that's true, then maybe this is because of them and maybe they have to do something to switch it back."

"Are you blaming them for this?" Oliver demanded.

"No!" Miley said at the same time Lilly said, "Well, _we_ sure as hell didn't do it."

Miley shot her an irritated glare. "I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just...I just don't know what it is that we could do."

"And what are they supposed to do?" Oliver said, still annoyed. "Fix all your problems for you?"

"Hey, I didn't _have_ any problems," Lilly snapped. "Not until this happened."

"Look, let's just calm down, okay? Maybe we're wrong and no one has to do anything. For all we know, we could be – "

"Yeah, it could be like that movie," Lilly said. "You know, where that guy wishes he was never born and then the angel shows him how screwed up everyone would be without him and he's happy again. Maybe it's like that and there's nothing we have to do, just something we have to learn."

"Then maybe you guys need to figure out what it is you're supposed to learn so I can get my friends back," Oliver said. "Because this is _not_ their fault." He snatched his tray up and stormed away from the table.

That was close, Lilly thought. Miley started half-heartedly pushing creamed corn around with her fork, eyes trained on the shapeless blob. "What?" Lilly asked, hoping that her thoughts hadn't gone back to what she was saying before Lilly interrupted.

Miley looked up, her expression troubled and more than a little sad. "I think I've learned enough already," she said. "I don't want to learn anything more."

———————————————

There was a note from Robby Ray on the kitchen counter when Miley got home. _In meetings_, it said, and went on to instruct her to have leftovers for dinner or get something from Jackson at Rico's.

Meetings? What meetings? He'd told her there wasn't any Hannah stuff this week. That it was all on hold.

Robby Ray didn't answer her call. Miley called again. "Miley?" he said finally, picking up right before it would have gone to voicemail again. "Did something happen? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Well, I'm kinda busy right now, so if you and your brother are okay, I'll call you back when I get done with this meeting."

"Wait," she said. "I want to know what meeting." He asked what she was talking about. "Is it a Hannah meeting? Why didn't you tell me? I could have gone with you."

"You had school," he said. "And you don't need to be here for this."

Miley bristled. Who was he to say what she needed to be there for? It was _her_ career, and who knew how much longer he would be there for any of it?

"I'll be home by eight," Robby Ray said, and hung up before she could say anything else. She immediately called back. It went straight to voicemail. Damn it. She'd said he wouldn't take Hannah from her, but this was like he already had, and she was helpless to stop it. All she could do for now was play by his rules.

She set the phone down carefully so she wouldn't slam it on the counter. It didn't matter, she tried to tell herself. This wasn't her world. This wasn't her life. She didn't care about Miley or this man who was not her father. She'd be gone soon and this place would fade like a dream.

She told herself that at least twenty times, but it didn't make concentrating on her homework any easier.

———————————————

The first few nights here, Lilly had fallen dead asleep as soon as she got into bed, like flipping a switch. But the last two nights had been restless, her mind tossing and turning as much as her body did. Distraction had always been one of the advantages to having someone else in bed, and Lilly wished she had that boy here now, the cute one from the party, whatever his name had been. If she'd gone with him last week would she still be here now? Why _was_ she here?

That question kept coming back, the one question she couldn't answer and wanted to avoid. It was fine for Oliver to say that Hannah and Lilly had gone together, that they would not have done otherwise. But she knew they hadn't. They couldn't have. It didn't explain why Lilly had switched when she was sixteen instead of a year and a half ago. Oliver was wrong. They hadn't gone together. Hannah had gone first. And then...what?

And then something had happened and Lilly had gone. Not too much later, not enough time later to account for the time Hannah had been alone – Lilly bent her thoughts from that word – in the other universe. But some time must have passed, something must have happened, something to make Lilly go to a different point in time than the one Hannah had.

Was her first guess right? Maybe Hannah had finally discovered how to switch back, only it had made Lilly switch in the process. But then why hadn't Lilly switched with her sixteen-year-old self? Why was she here, now, with Miley, instead of eighteen months from now with Hannah?

And would Hannah have done that? Listening to Oliver's stories, remembering how Hannah had treated her, Lilly couldn't think that she would. Not if she'd known it would make Lilly switch. Hannah had always acted as though Lilly was something precious and very fragile. It had been bewildering to Lilly, who knew she wasn't the first and wouldn't allow herself to be the second.

Why didn't you tell me? she thought at the other girl, but she knew the answer to that question, at least. It wouldn't have even occurred to Hannah to tell her, the same way Lilly didn't consider for a second telling anyone here.

She wondered if everything Hannah had done, said, if all of that was because of her Lilly, if there had ever been a moment when Hannah looked at her and saw _her_, not the person she'd left behind. If there had ever been anything in the time they spent together that was real, that was something more than Hannah chasing a memory. She didn't know if she wanted there to be or not. If there had been, Lilly had destroyed it. Hannah would not confuse her with the other Lilly, would not think her precious after what she had done. What she had done...

Lilly turned over in bed, turned her mind from that, landed on Oliver, which was –

_His front door gaping open, Oliver's body blocking out the space, barring her from a house where she'd been welcome her whole life._

_"Go away, Lilly."_

_"Oliver, I'm __**sorry**__."_

_"I don't care. I don't want to hear it."_

_"It was a joke! I didn't think they'd believe me!"_

_"Great. Is that supposed to make it better? You gave me up and you didn't even think it would work. You sold me out for nothing. Our friendship really must have meant a lot to you."_

_"It does, Oliver, I just thought – "_

_"It doesn't matter what you thought, Lilly. It doesn't even matter what you said. Just that you said it."_

_"Oliver, I – "_

_"Go away, Lilly. I'm done talking to you. I'm done with you. I don't ever want to talk to you again, so just go away. Have fun being a bitch with your new friends. I'm sure you'll be a lot happier with your own kind."_

_"Oliver – "_

_And then the door slamming in her face. _

– which was worse.

Lilly sat up and rubbed at her face, reached for the water on the table beside her bed. She needed a drink, something stronger than water, or a boy. A party. She needed out of this bed. Out of this house. Away from Oliver and her mother. She needed money. It all came back to that.

———————————————

At lunch on Tuesday, Oliver asked about the diary again. Miley said she still hadn't found it and slid her side salad onto Lilly's tray while the other girl was distracted watching Amber and Ashley holding court at their table across the cafeteria. He told Miley Hannah's schedule for the next few weeks, and told both of them about the assignments he knew they had due that week. And after school he took them to the skatepark.

"This isn't the one we normally come to," he said. "That's good. They don't know us and no one will be wondering why I'm teaching Lilly how to skate." He must have known Lilly wouldn't want to do it, because he didn't tell them where they were going until they got there.

"You're not teaching me how to skate," Lilly said.

"Yes, I am." He pulled a helmet and a skateboard from his gym bag and thrust the helmet at her. "Lilly skates. You need to know how. Your mom already thinks something weird is going on. You can't stop skating on top of everything else."

Lilly inspected it, arching an eyebrow. "Do you honestly expect me to wear this? It'll ruin my hair."

"Lilly doesn't care about her hair!"

Miley put a hand on his arm to calm him. "You could show me," she said. "I think it looks like fun." The label probably would have thrown a fit if she'd gotten on a skateboard back home. What if she broke her ankle and couldn't tour?

"You don't know how to skate," Oliver said.

"I know," Miley said. "That's why I want to _learn_."

"No," Oliver said. "I meant you – the _other _you doesn't know how to skate, so you don't need to know how."

"I got that," Miley said. "But I'm saying that _I_ want to learn how. Like the surfing."

"Great," Lilly said, jamming the helmet on Miley's head. "She can learn instead of me." Miley frowned, took the helmet off, and put it back on the right way.

Oliver shut his eyes and clenched his hand into a fist. "I don't think you guys are understanding the point of this. You're supposed to be getting _more like_ your other selves so no one figures out what happened. That means you – " He pointed at Lilly. " – skate. And you – " He pointed at Miley. " – hate sports. You suck at them."

"Who's going to figure out what happened?" Lilly demanded. "We don't even _know_ what happened. And even if we did, no one would believe us if we told them."

"No, but you don't want them getting suspicious and asking too many questions," Oliver said. "If they find out what we _think_ happened, they'll think you're crazy."

"But, I mean, people change," Miley said. "Can't I just say I changed my mind and decided I wanted to learn how to skateboard?"

"Yeah, and can't I just say I got bored of it and quit?" Lilly asked.

"You know what?" Oliver said angrily. "Fine. Do whatever you want, I don't care. I don't even know why I'm wasting my time with you guys. I was only trying to help." He started to stomp away but Miley ran after him.

"Wait, Oliver, come back." She grabbed his arm. "We're sorry. We want your help, we really do. We need you."

Oliver stopped.

"But Oliver," she continued. "We aren't them."

"I know that," Oliver barked. "You think I don't know that?"

"I know you know," Miley said. "What I meant was that maybe we don't have to be just like them. Because we'll never get it, we'll never be able to be them because we _aren't_. But Lilly was right. No one's going to guess what happened. I went surfing on Saturday and nothing happened, right?" She waited for his reluctant nod. "As long as we don't make any huge mistakes everyone's going to think it's just puberty or something, just...teenage hormones."

"I know," Oliver admitted. "But I want everything to be like it was. For when they get back."

"So if someone asks, Lilly will say she doesn't feel well and that's why she hasn't been skating," Miley coaxed. "And I'll say I drank too much coffee and I'm hyper and I wanted to burn off some energy. But no one will ask, Oliver. This is a small thing."

Oliver met her eyes and Miley's heart clutched at the pain in them. "It doesn't feel small to me."

"To me, either," Miley said softly. "But to everyone else it is. They won't even notice, it'll be fine. You'll keep us from screwing up anything big and it'll all be fine and when we switch back their lives will be just the way they left them." She held her breath until he nodded again.

"Okay."

"Good," Lilly said. "Because there was no way I was going to wear that helmet. It _smells_."

Miley rolled her eyes at Oliver and got a tiny smile in return. She grinned at him. "So you wanna see if I can stay on this thing longer than I did the surfboard?"

"I don't know," Oliver said doubtfully. "This board isn't the best to learn on. It's pretty fast."

"You were going to teach her on it," Miley pointed out.

He gave in, finally, and showed her how to stand – left foot just behind the front bolts – and how to push off – pushing foot in front of her foot on the skateboard. "Now watch my feet," he instructed, and demonstrated pushing off and then getting his other foot on the board. "Try to do it fast or the board will get away from you. Your back foot should be on the fishtail, behind the bolts, and you have to turn your front foot sideways. And you kinda need to lean right on this board. Think you got it?"

She didn't, but he walked beside the board with an arm up for her to grab for balance and coached her through it a couple times. "Long pushes," he corrected. "And push harder. Your back foot's landing on the bolts, it needs to be farther back. Okay, now try it by yourself."

"But it's so wobbly!"

"You can't learn to skateboard hanging onto someone. You'll be fine, just try it."

Miley carefully put her left foot on the board and went to push off, then halted. "Wait."

"What?"

"How do I stop this thing?"

Oliver laughed. "For now? You don't. Just jump off."

That was hardly reassuring. She pushed off anyway, in slow, stuttering starts. "Bigger pushes!" Oliver called. She tried to push a little harder but otherwise ignored him, just glad she hadn't fallen off yet. "Now get on!" he yelled when she'd pushed herself several feet away.

She pushed off one more time and tried to bring her foot onto the board, but she couldn't get her front foot to twist right and her back foot wasn't in the right spot and all of it too slow. Way, way too slow. The skateboard slipped away from her and she crashed to the ground, landing mostly on her butt and right elbow and the back edge of her borrowed helmet. _Ow_.

She lay there until Oliver appeared above her. "I think that was even less time than the surfboard," she said.

"Are you okay?" He offered her a hand and hauled her up. "Let me look at your arm. I should have made you wear pads."

"It's all right," she said, though she could see she'd skinned it pretty bad. Blood oozed up in long lines of tiny droplets that started to join up and run into each other. "But I'm starting to get why Miley doesn't do sports."

"Don't worry, it's a skatepark," Oliver told her. "Someone always has something around here." Lilly was stretched out on one of the benches, her head pillowed on her bookbag, and Miley sat on the next one over while he went away and came back with a water bottle, a square of gauze, and some tape.

He washed the grit out of the scrape, hands gentle, and Miley hardly felt the sting because she was too busy watching him. "How did it happen?"

"Huh?" He ripped a piece of tape off the roll and used it to secure one end of the folded gauze.

"How did you find out? You know, about Hannah."

"Oh," he said, taping down the other end of the gauze. He patted her arm and Miley shivered. "That. It's...well, it's kind of embarrassing."

"More embarrassing than the fall I just took?"

Oliver laughed. "I guess not. You did look pretty stupid."

"Thanks," Miley said wryly.

"No problem." He leaned back against the bench. "I used to have a crush on Hannah. That's how I found out. I was maybe a little obsessed with her, and it got so bad Miley finally had to tell me it was never gonna happen because she was Hannah."

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing!" Oliver said. "Nothing happened. I certainly didn't pass out, if that's what you're thinking."

It hadn't been. "You _passed out_? No, never mind. I meant what happened after she told you. Did you guys go out?" Surely he would have mentioned something about that by now, right?

"No. Of course not."

"She didn't like you?"

"And I didn't like her. Not like that."

"But you had a crush on her!"

"On Hannah," he corrected her. "And once Miley told me, it was like...it was like Hannah stopped existing, you know? She was just Miley in a wig. And I don't feel like that about Miley."

Could it really happen like that? She badly wanted to believe it could. "What about Lilly? What happened when she found out?"

"Oh, man, Lilly was _pissed_." He laughed at the memory. "She found out first, so I didn't know why at the time, but she got pissed and then they got into a big fight and didn't talk for a couple days."

"But do you think the same thing happened?" Miley persisted. "Do you think Hannah stopped existing for her too?"

"Well, yeah, of course," Oliver said, apparently oblivious to how incredible the idea was to Miley. "I mean, Miley's Miley, you know? And Hannah is just something she does. Like if she was on the soccer team. She never would be, but you get what I mean."

Miley remembered being angry at the other girl, thinking at her that Hannah was _important_, not some stupid extracurricular activity, and now she almost laughed out loud because here was Oliver telling her Hannah was exactly that. Did Miley know how lucky she was to have friends like this, friends who reacted like that when it could have so easily gone the other way?

She'd lost touch with all of her old friends when they moved from Tennessee. She was so busy, and they didn't have anything in common anymore. Her friends now were people like her, people in the business. They were okay, most of them, but they were really only friends because of proximity, geographic and fame. They were around when you were up and the spotlight was shining, but make one mistake and there was always the chance you'd pick up a magazine and find them condemning you in an interview. She knew it. They all knew it. If she ever stopped being Hannah, if the spotlight on her ever faded, she didn't expect that any of them would stick around.

She wondered if Miley knew what a fantastic, unimaginable thing it was that Hannah had been the one to stop existing for Lilly and Oliver, not Miley.

———————————————

Lilly relaxed a little once Oliver left them partway back from the skatepark.

"Oliver said I'll get better if I practice," Miley said, holding out the skateboard Oliver had loaned her and eyeing it. "But I'm not sure I believe him."

"You don't trust the board," Lilly told her. "You think it's going to get away from you, so it does." Miley had fallen almost a dozen times before she gave up for the day. Lilly remembered how much that hurt. Miley had to be pretty sore right now.

"You were watching?" Miley asked.

"A little." She'd watched Oliver with her. It was like going further back in time, to when Ben had taught her. Except Miley sucked at it. She still couldn't get both feet on the board without falling off. Lilly was almost positive she'd never been as bad, not even the first time she'd stepped on a board. "There wasn't anything else to do. And you just need to go faster. Like this."

She took the board from Miley and threw it down, stepped on and pushed off, got her other foot on smoothly and coasted a little way down the sidewalk. "And don't listen to Oliver when he says you have to get your back foot behind the bolts. You can always slide it back if you need to." She demonstrated. "See?"

Miley was watching her now. "Why didn't you tell Oliver you can skate?"

Lilly jumped off. "I can't skate." She grabbed the board before it could get too far away.

"You just did."

"I _don't_ skate."

"Why not?"

Lilly turned the skateboard over in her hands. "Skaters aren't popular." Not if they were girls. She'd learned that the hard way.

"Being popular isn't everything."

"Easy for you to say."

Miley smiled a little. "Not really." She walked towards Lilly. "You should skate. You'd be good at it. A lot better than me. And you like it, I can tell."

She didn't like it. It was just nice to be able to do it right after watching Miley mess it up all afternoon. "I don't skate."

"Here." Miley gently took the board from her. "Let me try it again."

"You'll fall, and you don't have a helmet."

"I won't fall." She put the board down and stepped on, pushed off slowly a couple of times, and then – somehow – managed to get her other foot on the board. She was shaky, her back foot was squarely on the bolts, and her arms were stuck out from her sides for balance, but she stayed on until the skateboard rolled to a stop a few feet later.

Lilly ran to her. "You did it!" She half-laughed at the pleased, surprised grin spreading across Miley's face.

"I told you I could. You must be a better teacher than Oliver."

Lilly put a hand on her hip. "Please, I'm a better _everything_ than Oliver," she said, and they both laughed.

"So...you wanna show me how to get off? Because I'm pretty sure if I move, I'm going to fall."

Lilly held her steady so she could take the step to the ground. "You are totally not cut out for this."

"Yeah, I already figured that one out. I think I'll just stick to dancing. You know, you could take the board home instead of me. If you wanted."

The other Lilly already had like three different skateboards there, but Lilly didn't tell her that. She kicked the board sideways with her toe. "I don't."

"Okay." Miley picked up the board and they walked for a few minutes until Miley had to split off to get back to her house. "I – I'll see you tomorrow. If we're, you know..."

"Yeah."

"Lilly?" Lilly waited. "Even if we aren't..."

It took a second, but then she got what Miley meant. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

———————————————

After she got back from the skatepark, Miley went straight upstairs to start her homework. They'd gotten a study guide for the history test in class today and she wanted to start filling it out so she would have time to ask Oliver or the teacher about anything she didn't understand. She was going to get a B on this test if it killed her. She'd gotten almost halfway through it when Robby Ray came upstairs.

"Dinner?" Miley guessed.

"It's in the oven," he said. "It'll be done in about twenty minutes. I set the timer. Don't let Jackson get it out, he'll forget the oven mitts and I'm not taking anyone to the emergency room tonight." He was dressed much nicer than the sweatpants and old shirt he'd been wearing when she got home.

"Where are you going?" she asked, unable to stop the trepidation that was creeping along the back of her neck. He wouldn't have meetings this late, would he?

"I've got a date."

The trepidation stopped creeping and started stomping. A barrage of questions spilled out of her mouth. "Who is she? Have you seen her before? How long have you known her? Is it serious?"

"Whoa, Mile." He frowned. "I thought we talked about this. You know I'd tell you if it was anything serious. It's just a first date, bud."

"Oh," Miley said, feeling both relieved and stupid. She'd gotten lucky. What if it had been something serious? Something that Miley was supposed to have known about already? "How long will you be gone?"

He came and kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back before you go to bed."

"What's her name?"

"Amy."

Not Candice. Thank god. Still... "And you'll tell me if you think it might get serious?"

"You know I would. You know I'm never going to get involved seriously with someone without discussing it with you and your brother first."

She didn't know that. She'd known her father was going out with Candice, but the first inkling she'd had that it was serious was the morning she came downstairs and found Candice in the kitchen with a diamond on her finger.

"I've gotta go," Robby Ray said. "Or I'll be late and that's not a good first impression. Don't forget to take dinner out."

The front door seemed to echo when it shut a few moments later. It didn't, she knew that, but she was up from the desk and out of the room anyway. She needed to find contracts, papers, even a calendar or planner, something that could tell her anything about the situation Hannah was in here. Maybe the desk in the guest room? She couldn't think where else to look.

She ransacked it but there was nothing. Old schoolwork of hers and Jackson's, pictures they'd drawn in kindergarten. Birthday and Christmas cards from their relatives. Report cards going back to elementary school – who kept stuff like this?

Maybe he didn't keep anything here at the house. Everything could be with the lawyers, or in safe deposit boxes at the bank. The bank. Money. She had an allowance here, was any of her money even in her name? What if –

A scream of pain from downstairs stopped her thought. Miley dropped Jackson's fifth grade report on ecosystems back into the bottom desk drawer. "Jackson?"

"Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"

"What happened?"

"Owwwwwww!"

She slammed the drawer shut and raced downstairs to find Jackson hopping around the kitchen, waving one arm around wildly. The oven door was open, a casserole dish of manicotti pulled partway out, and not an oven mitt or hot pad in sight. "Jackson, what did you do!"

"I was hungry!"

She grabbed his arm, leaning away from him so he wouldn't hit her with it before she got a hold of him, and pulled him over to the sink, turning on the cold water and sticking his hand under it. "The timer hasn't even gone off yet!"

"There's ten minutes left, that's practically nothing. And I was hungry!"

"You're seventeen years old, you don't know how to use an oven mitt?" She'd thought Robby Ray was kidding.

"Bu...I...but..." He gestured back and forth from himself to the dish in the oven. "Manicotti!"

Miley pulled his hand from the water and peered at it. The tips of his first two fingers were an angry pink, but the rest of the skin seemed untouched. "It doesn't look that bad." She shoved his hand back under the water. "Keep it there." She found a hot pad, slid the pan back in the oven, and shut the door. "You're lucky you didn't drop it and have molten cheese and tomato sauce all over you. I swear, you need someone looking after you full-time." She stopped, her hands still resting on the handle of the oven door. Who was looking after her brother?

"I'm not the one who was banging around making a mess in the guest room. Dad's not going to be happy."

"I'll clean it up."

He inspected his hand, then put it back under the stream of water. "What were you even doing up there?"

"Nothing." She opened the oven again and took out the manicotti on autopilot. "Jackson? What do you think will happen if he marries this woman?"

"It's a first date, Miles."

"But what if...what if he marries her, and then they're gone all the time, what if – "

"That would never happen."

"You don't know that," she said softly.

"Yeah, I do." The tomato sauce bubbled into the silence. "Miley. I do. That would never happen. Even if they got married, Dad isn't going anywhere."

"How's your hand?"

He shut off the water. "It's fine. Miles – "

"I can't believe you did that. And you think you're going to get into college."

He twisted his face in a sneer and flicked his fingers at her; she squeezed her eyes shut against the water droplets flying into her face and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Can we eat now?" Jackson asked.

The timer went off. Miley mopped her face dry with her sleeve. "Yeah. We can eat now."

———————————————

It was Wednesday. Tomorrow would be a week. A week in the worst time in her life. There was a calendar insert in one of Lilly's binder's, and Lilly thought about marking off the days, but this one only went through December and it depressed her enough just thinking about that. She wouldn't be able to endure starting a new one in January and having to mark off the whole year. Not if it was going to be like this.

She needed to get that money. Fast. She needed to get out of here, put her life back to something she could live without having remember every day that she was here and wonder why.

Because she still couldn't figure it out.

Corelli had them turn to page 238 and start answering the questions there. Lilly tapped her pen against the book, not seeing the words on the page. She almost wished classes were more interesting, or at least that this was stuff she hadn't seen before. Not that she'd paid much attention the first time, but she remembered bits and pieces, enough that her mind wandered even when she tried to concentrate, to let the lectures and classwork serve as a distraction.

Why eighteen months? Something must have happened, and it must have happened to Hannah. It must have happened to Hannah after she'd been in Lilly's world that long. Not switching back, no, Lilly didn't think that was it. But _going_ back, to the same time she'd left, to the time when Lilly here was fourteen...

She focused down on the textbook. Question one: How did the growth of the Roman Empire change the Mediterranean world?

_"They're friends. And that's what friends do for each other, right?"_

_"Right."_

Lilly wouldn't have done half the things in Oliver's stories for any of her friends. She didn't think Miley would have either. Maybe Lilly would have, once, for Oliver, a long time ago.

_That's what friends do for each other._

What else did friends like that do?

———————————————

Miley's head was stuck in school the whole time she was trudging back to the house. It was getting easier. She understood more of what was being taught, mostly because she'd spent the last two night buried in Miley's schoolbooks. The history test was tomorrow, and she thought if she spent one more night buried she might be able to pull off that B.

For the first time, she didn't immediately notice the differences in the house as soon as she stepped inside. Robby Ray was in the kitchen, and she noticed that, but only in the back of her mind, and not as anything out of the ordinary. She was only thinking of the history test.

She had gotten as far as the stairs when he scooped his keys from the counter and said goodbye and she registered that he was leaving. Dressed nicely. _Again_. She stopped, suspicious. "Where are you going?" she blurted.

"What?"

"Are you going out with Amy again?"

"Wha – no. I just have a meeting with Juliana. I'll pick up something for dinner on the way home."

"What's the meeting about?"

He put the keys back down on the counter, crossed his arms over his chest. "You going to start quizzing me about all my meetings now?"

Miley slid her bookbag off, mirrored his stance. "Maybe."

He hadn't been expecting that, for her to push back. Familiar confusion squinted out at her from his eyes. "It's just a preliminary meeting about the new contract. You know this one's up after this album."

She thought about that confusion, about the questions it would eventually raise if she kept on like this. She thought about the history test. Then she thought about the meetings this weekend, Monday. She thought about his date yesterday. "I'm going with you."

"What?"

She'd let this go for too long. She'd told herself that this was a vacation, that it didn't matter if she left everything for Robby Ray to do because this wasn't her world. It wasn't her career on the line. But no. She wasn't going to let Miley find herself in the same position she had been in. Screw the history test. "I said, I'm going with you. Give me five minutes to put the wig on."

"Mile, what has gotten into you?"

"Five minutes," she said. "Don't leave without me."

"I...you don't need the wig. Juliana knows."

Sure she did. Because the best way to keep a secret was to make sure as many people as possible knew about it. Not that she didn't trust Juliana. Juliana had taught her a lot. Juliana knew everyone and she knew how to get things done, and when Miley hadn't, Juliana had told her. She'd made a lot of phone calls a fifteen-year-old couldn't make, not even a famous one. She'd helped Miley set up the meetings to find a new manager.

"Fine. Two minutes, then." She wanted to change. Her clothes were sweaty from walking home.

"You really want to go with me?"

"I _am_ going with you."

"Are you sure? It's going to be pretty boring."

"I don't care."

"What about your homework? You have that test tomorrow."

She lied without hesitation. "I'm done studying. And I don't have any other homework."

He didn't look as if he believed her, but after a moment he nodded. "All right, if you really want to go. I'll wait for you in the car."

She flashed him the same smile she used on the paparazzi. "Be right down."

———————————————

"Come on, Lilly, let's go!" Ben yelled.

"I'm in the bathroom!" she screamed back.

"You're taking forever! We're late!"

"We'll be even later if you don't shut up and let me finish!" She was trying to put on make-up but she kept screwing it up because this make-up sucked. She tried mascara again. Her hand shook and the wand jerked up to hit the skin under her eyebrow.

Damn it.

She hurled the wand into the trashcan, knocked the tube off the counter into it, then, still furious, swept the rest of the make-up from the counter with the back of her arm. Most of it missed the trash, clattering onto the floor. It was all crap.

She turned on the water and scrubbed everything from her face, toweling it dry roughly. She hated this face. She hated this world.

When she finished here, she would have to go downstairs, get in the car with her brother, and go to see her father.

She picked up a thing of eyeshadow from the floor and started again, but just ended up jabbing herself in the eye. There was something wrong with this brush. It was too long or something.

"Lilly!" Ben again. "If you don't hurry up, I'm coming in after you!"

Fuck it, she thought. Fuck this face and this world and this life. All of it. She wiped at the smear of eyeshadow, reached for a towel. Locked eyes with herself in the mirror. And froze, her hand still halfway to her face. She couldn't even breathe.

There had always been that look in Hannah's eyes, those times Lilly had seen her around after, haunted and hopeless, like she needed someone to save her but she knew no one ever would, her eyes full that feeling Lilly could never name. But she knew it now. It was right there in her own eyes. Desperation.

She knew it, and in that moment she knew what Hannah had known. That there was no way out. That she wasn't going back.

Hannah had known it. Lilly didn't know how Hannah had known, but she had, she had been sure of it, and Lilly was too. They weren't going back. She couldn't make Hannah tell her the trick to it, switch back in a year and a half and pick up right where she'd left off. All of that was gone, everything she'd had, everything she'd worked for was gone for good. This place, this _horrible fucking place_ was it. She was trapped here. Forever.

"Lilly!" Ben screamed.

She went out without putting on make-up, without looking in the mirror again. "I'm coming," she called down to him. "I'm coming already." She didn't have a choice. There was nowhere else to go.

———————————————

The building was familiar. She'd been here a million times, and apparently lawyers' offices didn't feel the need to redecorate between universes. Juliana's assistant was the same woman, too, and Miley even thought she'd seen her wearing that outfit before. All of that had to be a sign that coming to this meeting had been a good idea.

"Miley," Juliana said, rising from behind her desk. "How wonderful to see you. I wasn't expecting you, it's been so long."

So long. Right. They'd had lunch last week. And what was with the polite act?

"She just got it into her head she wanted to come along today," Robby Ray was saying.

"And I'm delighted she did."

The politeness was starting to creep Miley out. So much for similarities. "Well, it is my name on the contract," she said. "I figured I should know what's going to be in it."

Juliana gave her an openly speculating look. "Smart," she said. "Let's get started then."

That had been what Juliana had said to her right before Miley signed her first contract. _It's your name on the thing. You should know what's in it._ And then she'd sat Miley down and made her go over it. Not all of it, not then, but the major parts, and she'd explained what each of them meant, how they would affect her. And when Miley's dad asked if that was really necessary, since Miley was only thirteen, Juliana had asked her, "How long do you plan to keep doing this?"

And Miley said, "The rest of my life."

And Juliana said, "Then it's necessary."

Had Juliana done the same thing for Miley here? Would Miley have given the same answer she had?

She took notes while Juliana went over what she would try to go for in the new contract, better notes than the ones she'd been taking in school the past few days. She jotted down all the high points: advance, royalties, length. She would leave them for Miley, she decided. _Your dad got you a new producer and locked you into a six-album contract while you were gone. Do you even care about any of this or are you just going to blindly do what your daddy tells you forever?_

"Any questions?" Juliana asked almost an hour later, her eyes flickering over Miley before focusing on Robby Ray.

"I don't think s—"

"Is controlled comp tied to sales or the album number?" Miley interrupted him.

Her question was met with a shocked silence. Yes, _all_ _right_, Miley thought irritably. She was tired of all the surprise and confusion. If she could find out she'd been transported to an alternate universe and still manage to function, it seemed like they could handle an unexpected question about a recording contract.

"You been studying up on this stuff, Mile?" Robby Ray asked. She shrugged. "Because I'm not even sure what you're talkin' about..."

"It's, uh...," Juliana said, then licked her lips and sat forward slightly, all of her attention on Miley now. "It's tied to sales."

Miley nodded. "For each album individually or cumulative?"

A small smile edged Juliana's lips. "Right now it's individual, but that's only because I wasn't aware this was an issue. No one let me know you were interested in including some of your own work for the next albums."

Because of course the other Miley never had before. What was the other girl _doing_? Even before her father left, Miley had written some of Hannah's songs. Establishing herself as a songwriter – that was just good business. She hoped Miley hadn't given the same answer if Juliana had asked, that she wasn't sure about doing this the rest of her life, because otherwise she was wasting a hell of a lot of time.

"Can we get it off the later albums?" she asked. "Maybe if the first one breaks double platinum?"

"I can try," Juliana said. "You know, if you're thinking of writing enough of the album that you're worried about controlled comp, maybe I should go after them for a bigger advance on the grounds that they can market that. That should translate into more sales, at least for the first album."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Robby Ray broke in. "What is it exactly you two are talking about?"

"Controlled composition is a clause that reduces the compensation Miley would receive if she both writes and performs a song," Juliana explained. "It's lose-lose, but there are ways to manipulate it to make it less disadvantageous."

Lose-lose. Disadvantageous. When Juliana had explained controlled comp to _her_, she'd called it the "goddamn labels are cocksucking whores" clause. Of course, her father hadn't been in the room at the time. Or the country.

"So we're talking about Miley writing a portion of the songs for these albums?" he questioned.

"A large portion, if I'm not mistaken," Juliana said, tilting her head towards Miley, who nodded in turn. "Obviously, the more Miley writes, the bigger an impact the clause has on her profits."

Robby Ray's face was drawn. "Juliana, do you mind giving me a minute with my daughter?"

"Oh, uh...of course," Juliana said. She stood. "I could use a cup of coffee. Would either of you care for one?"

"Yes," Miley said. It had been a long day and it was only getting longer.

But Robby Ray overrode her with a glare and, "We're fine, thanks. Just give us a couple minutes." The door shut behind Juliana and it was a moment before Robby Ray finally spoke. "Miley, why didn't you talk to me about wanting to write some of Hannah's songs yourself? Why am I hearing about it for the first time in your lawyer's office?"

What was she supposed to say, that it hadn't occurred to her to consult him? That she was used to having a lot of control over her career and she wasn't going to give that up for long? That would go over well.

"Sorry," she said, trying to put some feeling into it. "I, um, I wasn't sure yet if I was serious about it."

"You were serious enough to find out all the information about the control – controlling – the whatever-it-was clause. I've never seen you show any interest in any of this before, and where the heck did you even learn about that stuff?"

"The internet?" she tried, because it wasn't like she could tell him it had been Juliana.

"Miley, you know if you really want to do this, I'll support you." Support. Miley leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest to keep from clenching her hands into fists. She didn't need his support. She could take care of herself. And she'd make sure that Miley could too.

"In fact," he kept on, "I think you tryin' your hand at writing is a wonderful idea, and if you want to get some of your songs out there then we'll work together to make that happen. But are you sure that now is really the time to be thinking about that? You've got so much going on right now, I'm a little worried about adding to that."

He hadn't been so worried when he took off on a honeymoon that stretched out into months and left her without half the material he was supposed to be writing for her last album.

"And, bud, I don't want you to think I'm doubting your ability at all, but you haven't – " He paused and his face got all pinched, like he didn't want to say this next part. "I haven't even gotten to hear anything you've done. Have you played anything for Lilly? Anyone? Are you sure you're ready to – "

Miley laughed, she couldn't help it. "I'll tell you what," she said. "We'll split writing for the next album fifty-fifty, and I'll guarantee you it sits at number one for at least five consecutive weeks and every one of my songs charts as a single in the top ten, or I'll never write another one."

It wasn't until she stopped talking that she remembered she wouldn't be here for the next album. Oh well. It was past time for someone to give Miley a push to step up and learn to do things for herself. She'd figure it out, just like Miley had, and one day she would need to know all of this. Just like Miley had.

Robby Ray wasn't saying anything, and the way he was looking at her, intense and like he'd never seen her before, made her sure for a few seconds that when he did open his mouth he was going to ask who she was and what she'd done with his daughter. But she didn't care. She was tired of holding back, trying not to say anything wrong, pretending as best she could to be this other girl. It was an overwhelming relief to have said something plainly, as herself.

Did the other Miley feel like that all the time when she played dress-up as Hannah, like she had to hide who she was? Miley didn't see how she could stand it.

"You're real sure of yourself, aren't you, bud?" Robby Ray asked, not taking his eyes off of her. She only looked back at him. Who else could she be sure of?

The door to the office opened before he could ask anything else. "Do you need more time?" Juliana inquired from the doorway.

"No," Robby Ray said slowly. "I think we're all right."

"Shall I try renegotiating the clause?" she asked. _Shall_. Miley had never heard that word come out of Juliana's mouth in her life.

"Apparently so," Robby Ray answered.

Miley stood, sliding the chair out and banging it back under the table once she was out of the way. "Let's go," she said, wanting this over. It hadn't gone the way she'd thought it would. Nothing here ever did. She turned to Juliana while Robby Ray was getting up. "Call me and let me know what the label says," she instructed. Juliana looked to Robby Ray and Miley almost snarled at her. Whose lawyer did Juliana think she was? What would she do if Miley came to her alone?

"You heard her," Robby Ray said. "And it seems like she'd understand more than I would."

Back in the car, they didn't speak for a good fifteen minutes. Robby Ray kept almost starting, opening his mouth a bit or glancing in her direction, but the words never made it past his lips. Miley rested her head against the seat and shut her eyes for a while, pretending again, this time that she couldn't feel the concern emanating from him.

"Look," she said finally, when the tension got so thick there was no hope she could ignore it anymore. "I'll play you something tonight. You can decide if I'm ready or not."

That didn't seem to appease him at all and she wondered what more he could possibly want.

"What's going on, Miley?" he asked. "Did something happen?"

Yeah, something, she thought. Go ahead and guess. See if you can get it. "Like what?"

"You tell me," he said. She closed her eyes again. They drove through three songs on the radio before he cleared his throat and said, "I was thinking Chinese, what do you want? We're getting close, we should call in the order."

What Chinese food to get was so far down on her list of things to care about right now. "It doesn't matter to me," she said, and reached for her purse to get her phone. "I'll call Jackson and see what he wants."

Robby Ray made a noise. "Are you sure...You know you can tell me anything. I'm right here for you. You'd tell me if something happened, right?"

Miley thought she might hate him a little bit, this man who was _right here_, who loved his daughter more than her father did. "Of course I would," she told him, smiling sweetly, lying easily.

———————————————

Her father's apartment was all the way out in Westlake.

I don't care, Lilly thought, repeating the words in her head like a mantra as they got closer. I don't care, I don't care. Why should she? She'd done just fine without her father for the last year. And this wasn't even really her father.

She didn't care.

Ben pulled into the complex parking lot and parked in front of one of the tall, bland buildings. He got out, slamming his door and grabbing his bookbag out of the backseat. Then he paused, still bent over, his head stuck into the car. "Are you coming or what?"

Lilly hadn't moved. She wiped damp palms on her pants. "I'm coming in a second! Why don't you mind your own damn business?"

"What the hell is wrong with you, Lilly? Lately you've been such a – "

"Shut up, Ben! Just leave me the hell alone."

"Fine! Sorry for caring. It won't happen again." She didn't care. She didn't care about any of this.

He slammed the back door shut too and stomped off towards the building. Crap. She didn't know which apartment was her father's. She jumped out of the car and went after him, not catching up to him but not letting him out of her sight either. She followed him into the building and through the lobby, sliding between the doors of the elevator just before they shut. They didn't talk on the way up and she lagged behind him when he got off on the sixth floor.

Ben still had his keys out, and he used one to unlock one of the apartment doors. He looked back over his shoulder as he went through it, scoffed when he saw her standing frozen a few feet back, let the door swing shut in her face.

She didn't go in right away. The door was stained, polished wood, just like all the other doors in the hall. There was a brass door knocker on it right under the peephole, slightly tarnished. So were the brass numbers reading 603 set to the right of the door.

Everything until now had been at least slightly familiar. Same room; different decorations. Same school; different friends. She didn't like this world. She didn't like anything about it. But she could understand it, she could trace the differences back to some point in her own life and see how she could have gotten here if she'd done things differently. If she'd kept up with skateboarding when Ben tried to teach her. If she hadn't become friends with Amber and Ashley. If this, if that, there was always something she could go back to and see where this life had branched off from her own.

But not for this. She didn't understand this. This was completely different, and to go inside, to see her father in this place, would make this world more separate from her own, make it even farther away.

She couldn't stand out here all night. Lilly put her hand on the doorknob.

The last time she'd seen her father...

The last time she'd seen her father had been outside her townhouse. He'd come one night to try to talk to her, but she'd had people over, _important_ ones. She'd had movie stars in her living room, and there was her dad banging on the front door in a rumpled suit, face all red and sweaty. Lilly had been mortified. She was trying to impress these people, she couldn't have her father coming around, they were _movie stars_ for god's sake.

She made Brian get rid of him and sent a lawyer to her mother's office the next day and he hadn't come again. She hadn't missed him. She hadn't. Not really. And she thought he probably hadn't missed her either. Probably neither of her parents had. After all, they hadn't come again.

The doorknob left her hand as the door was opened from the inside. "Dad wants to know if you're coming in or if you're going to stand out here all night," Ben demanded sullenly.

Lilly sneered at him. They hadn't really gotten along since she'd started paying more attention to fashion than sports. "Maybe I'd come inside if you weren't in the way."

"Whatever." He retreated back into the apartment. At least he left the door open this time.

She stepped gingerly over the threshold. The entry opened directly into the living room, where a faded, sagging blue couch Lilly remembered from her grandparents' basement sat across from a small TV stand with a TV on top. A floor lamp stood in one corner and there was another lamp on a short table by one end of the couch. That was the only furniture in the room. The walls were blank, uninterrupted white and he didn't have curtains, just blinds. Her dad had never been one to decorate. He'd always left that up to Heather. She shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to picture her father living in this place.

"There you are, Lilly," her dad said, stepping out from what she thought must be the kitchen. "Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes."

He looked just the same. Just exactly the same, here among everything that was different. "Dad," she said. Choked.

He frowned. "Are you okay, honey?"

Mutely, she shook her head. He asked what was wrong but she just kept shaking her head, afraid to try and talk, and then he was there in front of her, pulling her into a hug, and he smelled the same. He smelled just like he should, like shaving cream and clothes starch, but her parents were divorced and they were standing in her father's sad, bare apartment and suddenly Lilly was crying.

Her father's arms tightened around her. It felt like it always had, every time she'd cried as a kid and he'd comforted her. She pressed her face to his shoulder and let the stupid, pointless tears fall onto his rumpled, button-down shirt. "What's wrong, Lilly?" he murmured against the top of her head. "Just tell me what's wrong, baby."

What was wrong was that she didn't know where her father was, if he was in an apartment like this with nothing on the walls. What was wrong was that she was nothing here, no one. What was wrong was that she'd lost her whole life, everything, and could never get it back.

"Everything's wrong." She couldn't stop crying, she was crying so hard she didn't think he could understand her. "Everything's wrong," she said. "I missed you."

———————————————

Dinner was mostly quiet. Jackson tried, he did, and Miley and Robby Ray tried to respond to him, but they were both preoccupied, and once he left for work the house filled up with silence. Miley left half her moo shu and sesame chicken cooling on her plate and went upstairs to study for the history test.

But she couldn't.

She shouldn't have done that. Oliver would freak out if he knew, with good reason. Miley was going to be screwed when she got back. She didn't know if the girl had ever even attempted writing a song, and Miley had just committed her to writing half her next album. But Miley couldn't find it in herself to be sympathetic. That was life; you got thrown in the deep end and that was how you learned to swim. And if the other Miley couldn't, well. Her daddy would probably be there to bail her out. Which was more than Miley'd had.

She got up from the desk and went downstairs. Robby Ray was on the couch watching TV. Miley grabbed Lulu and carried it over to stand in front of Robby Ray. Was she ready. She'd show him.

"Miley," Robby Ray said. "You don't have to – "

"I said I would," she said, and launched right into _Let's Get Crazy_. It would have been better with the rest of the instrumentation and the back-up vocals, of course, but she didn't just sing it, she performed it. Satisfaction welled up as she watched his face change from wariness to surprise to interest in spite of himself. By the time she hit the chorus one of his fingers was tapping out the beat against his knee. She didn't think he noticed it, but she did, and poured the rush of vindication right back into her performance.

She let the last notes linger on the guitar strings, casting off her calculated energy much more quickly and regarding Robby Ray soberly, waiting for his reaction.

There was a long, pregnant pause before he spoke. "Well, you're certainly ready," he said, and was she seeing things, or did he seem more tired than he had a couple minutes ago, his face more lined? A trick of the light, she decided. "That was terrific. And it'll definitely sell."

_Let's Get Crazy_ had been the first single off her latest album. It had stayed in the top ten for almost two months and been downloaded over a million times. She knew it was a good song. But she'd never heard him say it before. Somehow it meant more coming from him than it had from the rest of the world put together. "Thanks."

"You got more like that?"

She grinned. "Oh, yeah. A lot more."

It hadn't been a trick of the light. "Do you...maybe you'd rather I took a step back and let you handle everything for the next one."

Miley sucked in a breath, looked down at the ugly, unfamiliar pattern of the rug beneath her feet. That hadn't been what she meant at all. "No. I said fifty-fifty, right?" She breathed in again, looked up at him. "Besides, I love singing your songs." I miss it, she thought. She'd never told her father that. She wondered if he'd write her another one if she did. She wondered if she really wanted to find out.

Robby Ray's whole mood lightened. "Yeah? I'm glad to hear that, because you know I love writin' them. Come here and sit with me a minute." She complied, leaning the guitar against the couch next to them. He put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. "I know you're already a superstar, bud, but mark my words, you're gonna go even farther in this business, and I can't wait to see it." Miley swallowed. "You wanna play me something else?"

"All right." She took up the guitar again and sang a song she'd written about her father, about the day she'd realized that no matter what he said, he wouldn't always be there.

"You put that on the album you're going to have the entire country in tears," he said when she finished.

"That's not going on the album," she told him. Not the one that was almost finished, not the one after that. Not on any of them. In her world or this one. "Daddy, do you...do you think it's inevitable that people leave? I mean, you get older, things happen...is that just how it is? People leave, they choose something or someone else, even if you don't want them to?"

He put his arm back around her shoulders, pulled her in for a hug. "Oh, Mile," he said, and kissed the top of her head. "It's not always like that. And I don't think you need to worry. Who could ever be foolish enough to leave you?"

———————————————

**Happy Thanksgiving and/or Thursday! I will try not to suck so hard with getting the next chapter up.**


	5. Upside Down

**Okay, I'm pretty sure you're all tired of hearing about how much I fail, plus you already know that by now. So I'll just skip that part. At least I got it up before New Year's?**

**I'm going to fail more now, because you guys all left such awesome comments last time and I don't have time to go back and answer any of them right now because I have to work tomorrow and should already be in bed, but if this doesn't go up tonight, it won't go up until Monday, so. Please feel free to tell me how much I suck! I will agree with you!**

———————————————

**Chapter Five: Upside Down**

———————————————

_I picture you in the sun  
Wondering what went wrong  
And being caught in between  
All you wish for and all you need_

_I know I would apologize  
If I could see you eyes  
Cause when you showed me myself  
You know, I became someone else_

– Joseph Arthur, _In the Sun_

———————————————

**19 – 20 October 2006**

The alarm quieted under her hand. Miley rolled onto her stomach and let the mattress smother her. A week. A week, and who could say how much longer?

And how could she be expected to go back and carry on as she had been, as though everything was normal, as though nothing at all had changed?

———————————————

There was a voicemail on Lilly's phone after second period.

_Hi, Lillygoat, it's me. Just checking up on you after last night. I hope you're feeling better. Call me between classes if you have time so I know you're okay and your poor old dad doesn't have to go bald worrying all day. Do you want me to come get you and take you out to lunch today? I know you could use a good meal, you barely ate anything last night. And maybe a little break from school would be good. We could go to Coogies. I love you, honey. Call me._

Lilly deleted it. She hated that stupid nickname. And she was fine. She didn't need her dad checking up on her. He hadn't checked up on her for a year, and she'd been perfectly fine that whole time.

Her mascara ran, and she was fifteen minutes late to third period because she had to fix it.

———————————————

The noise in the cafeteria rivaled that of a Hannah concert. Miley and Oliver half-shouted at each other to be heard over it, but Lilly hadn't said a word all during lunch. She kept looking at her phone, and Miley frowned. She'd been acting weird all day, withdrawn, like she wasn't in quite the same space as the rest of them.

"I really don't want this tangerine," Miley said. She'd hinted as much three times so far but hadn't gotten any reaction from Lilly. Now Oliver cocked his head at her.

"You said that already," he said. "Don't eat it if you don't want it. No one's going to force you."

Miley sighed. Boys. They could be so dense sometimes. "Here," she said, giving up on subtlety and putting the tangerine directly in Lilly's hand.

Lilly blinked down at it, then started peeling it. "You don't want it?"

"She just said – " Miley glared at Oliver until he stopped talking. "Nope. It's all yours."

"Thanks."

"I hope you guys studied," Oliver said. "I checked, and this is going to be worth a quarter of your grade. You better be ready for this test."

"What test?" Lilly said.

Miley cringed. Oliver looked like all of his blood vessels were going to explode at once. "_What_ _test_? The – "

Lilly's phone buzzed. Lilly looked at it, shut her hand tight around it. "I have to go," she said, and got up and walked away without even glancing at them. Miley stared after her uneasily. What was that all about? Was she okay?

"What the...," Oliver said.

"I hope she's okay," Miley said.

"You hope she's okay? I hope Lilly's _grade_ will be okay. Can you believe she didn't even know what test I was talking about? She probably hasn't studied at all!"

Miley frowned and picked up the tangerine. "I'm sure she did. She's just distracted."

"By _what_? This isn't even her life."

"That's what makes it so distracting." She ripped the rest of the peel off and crammed a piece in her mouth. She was practically starving.

Oliver's forehead squinched. "I thought you didn't want that."

Miley rolled her eyes. Boys.

———————————————

Her dad wouldn't quit calling. Lilly had turned her phone off all morning, and when she turned it back on at lunch there were three more messages, and now he was calling every five minutes. She hadn't listened to the messages and she didn't want to talk to him, but she couldn't take staying in the cafeteria and listening to Oliver bitch either, and she thought if she didn't answer her phone soon her dad would probably call the school and have her pulled out of class or something.

She found an empty hallway and leaned against the end of a bank of lockers. "Dad. I'm at school. Stop calling me. You're going to get my phone taken away."

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay, honey."

One little crying fit and he felt the need to call her non-stop. What about the whole year she'd been gone and he hadn't called once? Why did he care so much now? Why hadn't he then? "I'm fine. I was just a little stressed out last night."

"You seemed more than a little stressed out."

Was it her fault?

"I have this history test today. It's worth twenty-five percent of my grade. I was just kind of overwhelmed." She hadn't called him either, and now she'd never be able to ask.

"Did you study?"

Did the fact that this was the second time she'd taken this class count as having studied? "Kind of."

"I'm sure you'll do fine." Her dad was alone here, just like she had been. Was her dad back home? She didn't want to think about him like that. Was anyone ever calling to check on him, or did he think no one cared?

"Dad? Are you okay?"

"What do you mean, Lilly? Of course I'm okay."

"I just meant, you know, being in the apartment. By yourself."

There was a long pause. Lilly pressed the heel of her hand against her eye. "Where is all this coming from, honey?"

"I just...I was just wondering if you ever...if you ever got lonely."

An even longer silence. "Sometimes," he said finally. "But, Lilly, you don't need to worry about me, okay? You aren't responsible for me. I'm your dad, I take care of you." Maybe in this world. "Not the other way around. And whenever I get lonely, I just think about how I'll get to see you and your brother again soon, and I'm not so lonely anymore. So don't worry about me, just worry about your test."

She didn't give a shit about the test, or this school, or anything. She wanted everything to stop, that was all she'd wanted since she got here. To go away from all of this and not think about it anymore.

"I'll see you tomorrow night," Alan continued. "You see? No time for me to get lonely. I have to run into a meeting now, but good luck, and don't forget I love you."

She really needed to get some better make-up.

———————————————

The questions dipped and swam in front of Miley. She would start reading one and when she finished she'd realize her eyes had jumped halfway down the page and the end of this question didn't belong to the beginning of the other one.

_How have the Western political ideas of the rule of law and illegitimacy of tyranny been influenced by the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome?_

She knew that. She'd studied that. She knew she had.

What was she going to do about Jackson? Would she be able to find him when she went back? He came by the house sometimes, mostly when she wasn't there. If she cancelled some Hannah things, waited for him...

Would he talk to her? Take money from her? What about a place to stay? He wouldn't stay at the house, not if she was there. But maybe she could move. Get a place in the city. Lose what tiny shreds of privacy she had, but it would be worth it to know that he was okay, safe.

And maybe, if she could talk him into that, maybe she could leave money at the house, say it was from their dad, that he'd left some to take care of things at home while he was gone. Jackson probably wouldn't think to check with him when he came back. It didn't happen very often, or for very long, so he wouldn't have much of a chance.

And if her father asked about her move, she could just say she needed to be closer to LA. If he asked. He hadn't said anything about Jackson moving out.

_Analyze the similarities and differences between Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman views of law, reason, and faith._

But first she would have to convince Jackson. Or maybe she shouldn't. Maybe she should tell him the same thing she would tell her father, say she wanted to be in LA and then leave the house unlocked when she left. Let him think it was all his idea to move back. But would he?

And she wanted more than that. She didn't just want him safe, a roof over his head. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to apologize. She wanted her brother in her life. But she couldn't think of anything that she could do that would make that happen.

Unless...unless she gave up Hannah.

She couldn't. She couldn't give up the only thing in her life that made her happy when there was no guarantee she would get anything for it.

_Explain the link between U.S. political philosophy and the U.S. Constitution and the society of Classical Greece._

Maybe that made her selfish. Shame rushed just under her skin, because that did make her selfish, didn't it? She should be willing to give up anything for her family, but what if she did that and ended up with nothing?

How was she supposed to know what to do?

_Discuss the influence of the U.S. Constitution on world political systems._

How was she supposed to think straight long enough to figure out the answers to these questions when her head was full of ones that didn't have any?

———————————————

For the first few minutes after school, Lilly felt like she could breathe, every step she took away from the building making it easier. She would go home and turn off her phone. Her mother would still be at work. If Lilly had money, she'd go shopping, but for now it would be enough just to be away from everyone who kept expecting her to be someone else.

So everything would have been fine if Oliver could have just kept his mouth shut.

"So how was the history test?" he asked anxiously. "Do you think you did okay?"

Miley bit her lip. "Does a B minus count as a B?"

"Miley, you – " He groaned. "I thought you were studying!"

"I did study! But I also had more important things than a history test to worry about."

"Like what?" he demanded. "I know there wasn't any Hannah stuff this week."

"Yes, there was. I had to meet with the lawyer yesterday after school. And why didn't you tell me about that? You said there wasn't anything until the recording studio on Saturday."

"Because there wasn't! I don't keep track of meetings with lawyers. Not even Miley does, that's your dad's job!"

"Not where I'm from."

"This isn't where you're from! And you're not going to get to do _any_ Hannah stuff, Miley won't get to do any, if you don't try – "

"I am trying!"

"Try harder!"

Miley opened her mouth to reply but Lilly cut in. "Lay off her, Oliver. She said she's trying."

Oliver rounded on her. "And what about you? Are you trying? Lilly works really hard for her grades and it's like you don't even care about that!"

Fine. If he wanted to shout, she would shout. "You know what? I don't! This entire world sucks ass and I don't care about anything in it, not a single fucking th—"

"Well, Lilly does! And when she gets back – "

She was so sick of hearing him talk about that other girl like she was coming back. Every damn sentence out of his mouth was always, 'When Lilly gets back' this, or, 'As soon as they get back' that, like he couldn't wait to get rid of her. Oliver had been the same way. And she didn't _want_ to be here. She would be happy to go back, but she couldn't, she was here, and she _could not_ listen to him saying she wouldn't be.

"Stop saying that!" Lilly yelled. "Just shut up about it! She's gone, okay? She's not coming back! They're not ever coming back, so just shut your damn mouth already!"

Miley stopped walking. Oliver almost tripped and his jaw flapped open uselessly. He stopped too. Shit, Lilly thought. She hadn't meant to do that.

"Don't say that," Oliver said.

"It's true." She would have to tell them everything now. There wasn't any way to take back what she'd said. She couldn't pretend she hadn't meant it now if she was going to convince Miley this was real later.

"No, it isn't," Oliver said, but over top of him Miley was saying, "How do you know?"

"Because I'm sixteen."

Whatever proof they might have thought she had, it hadn't been that. "What?" Miley said. Oliver just stared.

"I'm sixteen," Lilly said. She concentrated on Miley, who at least looked like she was trying to process what Lilly was saying. Miley was the important one anyway. "I didn't leave the same time you did. The other Miley was in our world a year and a half before I got pulled here. She was there _a year and a half_, and she's still there. They aren't coming back. _We_ aren't going back."

"No," Oliver said. "No. They wouldn't just leave like that and not come back." He looked so pale and uncertain that Lilly actually felt a little sorry for him.

"You're sixteen?" Miley asked. She was watching Lilly the way a hawk watched a mouse and hadn't even glanced at Oliver to see his reaction.

"Yes," Lilly said.

"You left a year and a half after I did? Miley was there that long?"

"Yes."

"No," Oliver said. The word came out strangled.

"We're not going back?" Miley asked. "You're sure?"

"Pretty sure," Lilly said truthfully, because there was always a chance that she was wrong, and right now she needed to come across as completely honest. "At least not for a year and a half. But I think she would have come back here if she could. I think that's why Lilly left."

"You're wrong," Oliver said again, but Lilly could see that even he didn't believe that.

"Oliver," Miley said. "I don't think she is. I know it doesn't make sense to you, but this...it feels permanent." Maybe it did to Miley, but even knowing that they weren't going back, even believing that they never would, it didn't feel that way to Lilly. Precarious. That was how she felt. That was how she always felt.

Oliver was staring at a tree about twenty feet away, but Lilly didn't think he was seeing it. "They wouldn't just leave...they wouldn't – "

"They might not have had a choice," Miley said gently. "We didn't."

Oliver's gaze shifted from the tree to Miley. Lilly didn't think he was seeing her either. He blinked twice, slowly, then turned and walked away from them without a word.

"Oliver!" Miley called after him, but he didn't stop or give any indication that he'd heard.

They stood next to each other in silence until he'd disappeared down the sidewalk. Then Miley said, "How do you know? How do you know that I didn't go back? How do you know that it was her there that year and a half and not me?"

Lilly was ready for that question. She'd known Miley would ask it, and there was no way she was telling Miley about her friendship with Hannah. That would bring up way too many questions that would be a lot harder to answer. "Because you would have told me. Warned me. Wouldn't you?"

"I...yes. I would have found you and told you. You would've thought I was crazy, but I would've told you anyway."

"Even if you didn't know that I was older and that you needed to warn me, you still would have found me when you went back." Miley nodded. "So the only thing that makes sense is if she was there the whole time and not you."

"A year and a half," Miley said softly, and after a moment, "But you don't know if I go back after that."

"No. Not for sure. Maybe you do, maybe she figured out some way to switch you back. But then why would I have switched?"

"And why did you switch to now instead of then?" Miley asked.

"Exactly," Lilly said, relieved that Miley seemed to be taking the news well enough to still be able to logically follow things. Or what passed for logical in this. "Maybe whatever she did to switch you guys switched me, but I don't think so. It still wouldn't explain why I switched back to now. I think she knew she wasn't switching back, ever, and somehow she told Lilly that. It must have taken her that long to figure out how to do it."

"And you think Lilly went then?"

"Right."

"But still, why did you switch to now? Why didn't you switch with the other Lilly when she was sixteen?"

"You think I know?" Lilly asked. "I don't know how this works. I just know what happened to me. I'm guessing about the rest. But I think I'm right."

"Why didn't you say something before?"

Lilly was ready for that question too. "Because I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to go back home. I'm sorry, I know I should have said something, but I just kept hoping I was wrong."

"It's okay," Miley said. Lilly was pretty sure Miley believed her, but she added on another apology for good measure.

"And I'm sorry I blurted it out like that. I should have told you better, I just...I couldn't take listening to Oliver talk about we'd be going back, because every time he did it kept reminding me we never will."

"It's okay," Miley said again, and Lilly thought there was a hint of sympathy in her voice. She might not have meant to tell Miley yet, but this had gone even better than she'd hoped it would.

They started walking again and Lilly kept glancing at Miley as they did. The girl was deep in thought, and Lilly watched as her forehead wrinkled and her mouth started to turn down. "What?" Lilly asked.

Miley shook her head. "I don't think she would have liked it there," she said, and they walked the rest of the way home without speaking.

———————————————

Oliver used his key to get into his house. No one was home. His brother stayed after school in the program there and his dad picked him up on his way home from work because Oliver's mom had such irregular hours. It all depended on her cases. He wanted to put her on this case. Find my best friends, he would tell her. They're missing.

But she wouldn't believe him. Who would, with Miley and Lilly right there? Even if she did, where would she look for them? Where had they gone?

Somewhere he couldn't follow. He knew that much. Somewhere they were never coming back from. And they hadn't even asked him...

He went into his room and set his bookbag by his desk. There were things in his room that Lilly had left there: some elbow pads, a basketball, a green beanie. A necklace she had borrowed from Miley and broken. There were pictures of all three of them. He didn't look at any of those things.

They had gone together. Of course they had. That did not surprise him. But they had gone so quickly, so easily, without him. As though they didn't need him at all.

Oliver stood in front of the wall, in front of a spot that was blank blue paint with no posters on it. He stared at it.

He had met Lilly in preschool. They had been friends since then, in one long, unbroken line. He couldn't remember not knowing her. She was like his sister, as permanent as any other member of his family. Permanent.

Not anymore.

He kept his eyes fixed on the smooth surface of the wall, flexing his hands open and closed.

And Miley. He hadn't known her as long, but he had known her. He had loved her. She was his friend.

He made his hand into a fist and punched the wall as hard as he could. Pain lanced through his hand and up his arm, but he didn't cry or scream or move away. The wall was still flat, smooth, like he hadn't even punched it. So he punched it again, and again. He punched it over and over because that was the only thing he could do, kept punching until the wall gave way and something in his hand changed and he couldn't punch anymore. Then he stood and stared at the hole in the wall.

They hadn't even said goodbye.

———————————————

Oliver was already at the hospital before he thought to call his mom. He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten there. It wasn't that far and he had vague snatches of balancing on his skateboard, left arm crossed protectively over his right, but the pain in his hand was so great he almost passed out every time he tried to flex it open. He'd tried it a lot on the way over, and now he couldn't really get any of those memories to stay pinned down.

It wasn't even being in the hospital that did it, or talking to the nurse behind the desk, even though she asked him if there was anyone to call. It was when he found himself sitting in one of the uncomfortable, vinyl-covered chairs in the waiting area, staring down at the spot that asked for insurance information on the form the nurse had given him. He didn't know his insurance information, and in the slow, labored way his brain was working, it clicked that his mother did. So he called her.

"I'm at the hospital," he told her when she picked up. "I need to know our insurance information."

"I'm really busy right now, Oliver," she said. "I don't have time for your jokes."

He flexed his hand open a fraction. Pain, bright and sharp, seared everything else away. "Okay," he said. It sounded like his voice was coming from the other end of a very long tunnel. "I think I'll have to wait a while anyway." The room was pretty full, and the nurse had said something about how non-urgent cases weren't the top priority. "You can give it to me when you get off work."

"Oliver," his mother said sharply. "Where are you?"

He'd already told her that. Hadn't he? He opened his hand again and after that he couldn't be sure. "I'm at the hospital," he said, and added, "I hurt my hand."

"Stay there," his mom said, and Oliver thought she might be yelling but it was still kind of hard to hear her. "Stay right where you are, I'm on my way."

"Okay," Oliver agreed. He tried to put the phone down, but it slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor, some piece of it cracking off the back and spinning away. Oliver looked at it a second, then leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. Maybe he would wait for his mother and let her fill out the form. It was hard to write with his left hand.

———————————————

The doctor said he was in shock, and also that he'd fractured two bones in his hand. Oliver thought that was stupid. Not the part about the broken bones, but the part about the shock. If he was going to go into shock, he would have done it a week ago when he first found out his best friends had gotten yanked into some alternate universe. He wasn't shocked. He was _angry_.

"How did you hurt your hand?" the doctor asked, putting up the X-ray of Oliver's hand to show him and his mother. The man was short and kind of round, and Oliver had never trusted doctors who didn't look like they cared about their own health.

"I hit the wall in my room," Oliver said. The doctor looked like he didn't believe that, so he added, "Fifteen times."

"You're sure it was a wall?" the doctor said. "You weren't in a fight?"

"You can tell us, Oliver," his mother encouraged, as though she thought he might be holding back for fear of being punished. But he would probably be punished for the hole in his wall. He didn't care if he was.

"I wasn't in a fight," he said. "There isn't anyone to fight." How could you fight something strong enough to move people between lives, between worlds?

"Why would you hit the wall?" the doctor asked. It was the kind of tone he probably used when he thought the person he was talking to was crazy.

Oliver smirked at him. Bastard. He didn't know anything. "I guess it's just puberty," he said. "Just those damn teenage hormones."

———————————————

In the car, Oliver's mom wrapped her hands around the steering wheel. "Oliver, what really happened? You won't be in trouble, I promise. Just tell me."

The cast sat heavy in his lap. Last time he'd had one had been sixth grade, a broken arm from trying to land a trick Lilly had already mastered. The time before that, he'd been nine. Broken leg from falling out of a tree. It had been summer and he'd been laid up in bed for weeks. Lilly had come every day and they'd played board games and watched cartoons and tried to learn how to do magic tricks.

Both times, she'd been the first one to sign his cast. Oliver decided he wasn't going to let anyone sign this one. "I told you. I hit the wall."

"Did something happen at school?"

Oliver tried to think of something that could ever happen at school that would have made him do this.

"What about your friends?" his mother asked. "Is everything okay with them?"

No. They're gone. Find them. But he couldn't say that. "They're fine," he said, but he didn't know if even that much was true. He wouldn't ever know that again. He wiggled his fingers in the cast and wondered what his mother would do if he started punching the dashboard with his other hand. "They're the same as always."

———————————————

Miley spent the night shut up in her room. _Her room_. She didn't even come out for dinner. She told Robby Ray that she had too much homework, and he made up a plate and brought it up to her. Because he did things like that here. He was here to do them.

And she was here, too.

This room was nothing like her room back ho—back in the other world. It still felt strange even after a week. But that didn't matter. She wasn't going anywhere. She would have time to get used to it.

She wasn't going anywhere. She was staying here. This place, this life was hers now. She didn't know what to do with that. She'd known where she was in her world, she'd known where she was going. She'd had it all planned out.

Now what?

Was she supposed to be happy? Devastated? A week ago, she would have been, but now? Miley thought she should be feeling something, but she wasn't. It didn't seem real. It didn't feel like this was happening to her. And maybe that was fitting, since this was someone else's life.

Jackson was here. That was good. And Robby Ray was here, which was...well, he was here.

Her father would be fine. He had Candice, he had skiing and weeks on the beach and everything else. And Jackson. Would he have come back? Would he have let her help him? Would Miley try to?

She would, Miley decided. She wanted to believe that, and Miley wasn't the one who had let her family slip away, who had let Hannah become everything.

Had Miley done this, or would she? How long did it take her to realize that she was staying in the other world, and what had she done, what would she do when she did? Was she sitting in Miley's room right now, wondering what Miley would do with her life? Was she worrying about her father, her brother, her friends? She must be.

And what must she think of Miley?

She shouldn't worry. Miley would take care of them. She would look after them. Miley thought of herself, of Robby Ray downstairs and Jackson at work. They had all been left, only the two of them didn't know it. She would make sure they never did, she would spare them that.

She started to move around the room, examining everything. Her investigations so far had been haphazard, just enough to find clothes or school assignments. Even though she was in the other girl's body, poking around too much in her room had felt like intruding on her privacy.

But now it was her body, her room, her life, and she couldn't keep living minute-to-minute, day-to-day, hoping to get by until she went back. She'd been lucky so far, but no more of that. No more of counting on luck to last until this was over, because it wouldn't _be_ over, ever. If she was going to stay here, Oliver was right. She needed to know things. Because she wasn't going to do anything that would make Jackson or Robby Ray think, even for a second, that their sister and daughter was gone, replaced by someone utterly unfamiliar.

The diary was in Miley's underwear drawer. Almost as obvious as under the mattress, but definitely a place that had a better chance of keeping Jackson from getting his hands on it.

Miley settled cross-legged on the bed and read the diary from the front cover to where it stopped a third of the way through. It only went back a few months, and mostly was Miley's versions of some of the stories Oliver had already told them. He and Lilly were on every page.

Hannah was there too, all mixed in, and by now Miley wasn't even surprised at that carelessness. What if someone found the diary? Well, they wouldn't. She would take care of that too. This girl was such a mystery to her sometimes, how she could care so much about keeping most of her life to herself and yet be so cavalier about keeping the secret that let her do so.

When she finished that one, she hunted through the room until she found another one, a stack of three of them in a box on one of the back shelves of the Hannah closet, hidden under the ugliest sweater Miley had ever seen. It had a cat sprouting out of the middle of it, and when Miley lifted it up, the cat meowed at her.

Two of the diaries were from here in Malibu, one the first year Miley and Jackson and Robby Ray moved here. She read them both. The third one started in Tennessee and she shut it as soon as she saw the date on the first entry.

There might be something in it she needed, but she couldn't. She couldn't go through that again, didn't want to know what someone else had felt, not even someone who was herself. She didn't know if it would be worse to find that Miley had felt exactly the same or that she had felt different.

She remembered her first day in this place, how she had been glad her mother wasn't. How very stupid she had been. Even a day would have been a day.

Miley opened the current diary again, found the first blank page and carefully wrote the date. _I'm sorry_, she wrote under it. Just in case. Just in case they switched back, just in case they didn't, just in case Miley could somehow feel her regret.

_I don't think she would have liked it there_, she had told Lilly, and everything she'd read tonight only made her more sure that she was right, that Miley would not care for the life she'd inherited. Miley hadn't been able to spend ten minutes with Oliver before he'd figured out she wasn't his friend. In her world, she didn't think anyone would notice the change, would notice that she was gone.

The box was a good place. Miley didn't think anyone would be tempted to take that sweater out for a closer look, and whoever found them in the Hannah closet would already know. She closed the diary, put all of them back in the box, and knew she would not look at them again.

———————————————

The next morning, Miley and Lilly saw the cast. "What happened to your hand?" Miley asked.

"I hit something," Oliver said.

"What?" she said.

"The wall."

"What are you, stupid or something?" Lilly said, but the look in Miley's eyes said that she understood. "I could take notes for you," she offered.

"Do you even know how?" he snapped, and walked away.

———————————————

Right after second period, Miley pushed Lilly down the hall and into the girl's bathroom. There was one other girl in there, washing her hands at the sink. "Hey, Lilly, hey, Miley," she said.

"Hey..." Miley said.

"Jeanie," Lilly muttered. The girl looked like she'd let her blind grandmother dress her, and back home Lilly wouldn't have let her leave the bathroom unless she was on the verge of tears over it, but it seemed kind of pointless now. She'd be gone from here soon, out of this school in a few weeks, so what did she care what some ninth-grade loser was wearing? And it wasn't like her current sartorial situation was much better.

"Jeanie," Miley finished.

"What's going on?" Lilly asked. Miley shook her head. The bell rang and Jeanie dried her hands and tossed the paper towels away, left with just a curious backwards glance at them. Probably wondering why they weren't running off to class, since Hannah and the other Lilly had probably never skipped one in their lives.

"I want to know what she did," Miley said once the door swung shut.

"Who?"

"Miley. I want to know what she did when she got to my world."

Lilly started to panic. Why would Miley think she knew that? Did she suspect that Lilly had known her? "How would I know?"

"She was still Hannah, wasn't she?"

Oh. Right. She got it. Miley was worried about what Hannah had done to her life, and shit, Lilly hadn't even thought of that. What was that fourteen-year-old dork doing to hers? She couldn't even drive! She'd probably wreck Lilly's car trying to. She'd probably wreck Lilly's reputation, too. Probably wreck her whole life.

All the more reason for Lilly to make sure she took what she needed from this one.

"Well, wasn't she?"

"Yeah. She was. Hannah was fine. Nothing happened." She bet that other girl would call her parents. She probably wouldn't guess they might not answer the phone, wouldn't be happy to hear it was Lilly if they did. She'd probably be upset if she couldn't go crying to them over every little thing. She must be used to doing that, if the way her dad kept calling and her mom kept acting worried was any indication.

"What do you mean nothing? Did the album get finished?"

"It went platinum, just like always. No one knew it wasn't you." Least of all Lilly. "She was okay." Although she was pretty sure Hannah had started drinking. A lot. Lilly had seen her at a lot of parties with a lot of drinks in her hand. Drinks Lilly might have put there. But she wasn't going to tell Miley that. She didn't want Miley thinking about her old life, worrying about it. She wanted her thinking about her new one and how much she wanted to keep it like it was, keep Hannah a secret.

"She was okay? Hannah was okay?"

"Relax. Hannah was still topping the charts and selling out tours. She was okay."

The tension around Miley's eyes went away. "Good. That's good. I almost didn't ask, I almost thought it would be better not to know. But I'm glad I did. How do you think Lilly is?"

"Please. She has a driver's license. She's got to be having the time of her life right now." Money. Friends. Parties. If she had any sense at all she'd be thanking god for having been handed all of Lilly's hard-won wealth and status. If she had any sense she'd figure out it that it hurt less not care about people who didn't care about her.

Miley laughed. "So you think they're all right?"

No. "Yeah."

"Good. That makes this easier, don't you think?"

No. "Yeah."

Nothing would make this easier except it ending.

———————————————

Miley furiously scribbled down notes. She was getting better at it, despite what Oliver thought. But she couldn't believe there was a time when she'd ever thought that Miley's life was _less_ busy than hers. School, homework, Hannah stuff, just hanging out with her friends – you couldn't juggle all of that equally. Something had to give, and for Miley it had been Hannah.

She'd stunted her career for the sake of keeping an ordinary life. And Miley had been willing to respect that, before. When this wasn't her life. But now it was, and she couldn't just stay in a holding pattern, keeping things as Miley had them. If this was going to be her life, she had to make it hers. She wouldn't do anything drastic, wouldn't tell the world she was Hannah, didn't want to. Next to her family, she thought the Hannah secret was the biggest gift of this life.

And it was a gift. This whole thing was. She hadn't known what to feel last night but this morning she had opened her eyes and felt relief. There was guilt on its heels – she knew Miley would not be so happy, nor Lilly – but at first there was only relief that this was hers and she would not be made to give it up.

So she would be careful with it. She would make sure that Robby Ray and Jackson never guessed their loss. But she couldn't spend her whole life pretending to be someone else, and this _was_ a gift and she would treat it that way. There were things Miley had taken for granted that she could not. She didn't think she could bring herself to be so certain of her family that she would be careless of them.

There had to be a balance, something between making this life hers and preserving the best parts of how it was now. Miley hoped Oliver wouldn't stay angry. Wouldn't hate her. Reading those diaries, she felt as if she'd learned him. They had been as much his story and Lilly's and Miley's, and Miley's friendship with them was something else she wouldn't take for granted if she had a chance at it. She'd had friends in Hollywood for years, but already she felt closer to Lilly and Oliver after just a week. What had she been through with those other people besides parties and movie premieres?

She didn't want to lose him. She didn't want to lose anything, and she didn't think she had. Not after Lilly had said that Hannah was okay in her world. And not when she believed that Miley would at least try to do something for Jackson.

She had to put all of that away and trust, as she had been, in Miley. She had to focus on finding her way in this life instead of holding on to the one she'd left behind.

The teacher put up another equation and began to work through it, and Miley dutifully copied it down, one eye on the clock. She needed more time for Hannah. She thought she understood why Miley had done it this way, and maybe Miley had been content to see Hannah as a weekend gig, but she wasn't. That wasn't enough for her. She knew where she wanted to be in a year, in five, and school wasn't it. She would be careful never to let her career become her whole life again, but Hannah had to come first.

Something else would have to go.

———————————————

Oliver avoided them all morning. He didn't say anything to them during classes or between them, and when lunch came he sat at a table on the other end of the cafeteria. Lilly just rolled her eyes, but Miley kept looking over at him all the time, like she was worried about him. Whatever. It was actually kind of nice, not having to listen to him go on and on about how his friends were so much better than they were.

"You want my apple?" Miley asked. "I'll trade you for your meatloaf."

The meatloaf was gray and had mystery meat written all over it. Lilly suspected it would taste like warm cat vomit, not that she would ever put it in her mouth. The apple was okay, though. Lilly had already eaten her own, and was grateful to be able to do the favor of trading with Miley. This body still got so hungry, and she was too tired and too preoccupied to fight it very much. But she still couldn't make herself touch most of the cafeteria's offerings. Miley didn't have that problem, however, and almost seemed allergic to the only things Lilly could stomach.

Except now she was poking Lilly's meatloaf with a slightly nauseated expression on her face, and Lilly noticed she hadn't even eaten all of her own.

Lilly's eyes narrowed. "You don't like it?"

Miley looked up, guilty. "What? No, it's great. I'm just not very hungry."

"Why did you trade me the apple for more meatloaf if you're not hungry?" Miley looked like she was struggling to think up an answer and Lilly saved her the trouble. "It isn't that you're not hungry. You hate this stuff but you pretended you wanted mine and I want to know why."

"You won't eat the meatloaf. Or any of the stuff like that," Miley said, still looking guilty and like she was bracing herself. "But you'll eat fruit, or a salad if there is one. And you need to eat more than just one piece of fruit or one tiny salad. So I give you mine."

Besides that morning last weekend, Miley hadn't said a word about Lilly's eating habits. Lilly had thought she'd forgotten about it, but no, instead she'd spent the last week quietly trying to make sure Lilly got something to eat when Miley was around her. The first time Miley had said something, Lilly had been pissed beyond belief, but now she was too surprised by the revelation that, in the midst of everything else that was happening to them, Miley had cared enough about this, about her, to act.

"Why?" she whispered, then cleared her throat. "Why would you do that?"

"Because we're friends, aren't we?" Miley said. "Or something. And that's something a friend would do."

The first time Hannah had called Lilly her friend, Lilly had hadn't believed her luck. Here was _Hannah Montana_, superstar, wanting to be friends with Lilly Truscott. Lilly hadn't thought to ask why. She hadn't cared, not that day. Later she would wonder, wonder too if the fact that she couldn't come up with a single reason meant that Hannah would drop her just as quickly and with as little explanation.

But that first day there had only been excitement and the firm belief that it was the best thing that had ever happened to her. There was none of that now. Lilly regarded Miley uncertainly, trying to figure out what they were to each other with this huge, horrible thing binding them together, and whether they'd be anything to each other without it.

"Yeah," she said finally, though she didn't know if she was answering Miley's question or just agreeing with her statement.

"And I like you," Miley said.

"You do?" Lilly asked, surprised again and pleased in spite of herself. She was convinced now that Hannah never had, that she had only kept Lilly around for the sake of the girl she remembered, not the one Lilly was. But Miley didn't know that other girl, didn't have those memories. And Lilly wasn't anyone here, she wasn't popular, or rich, and she certainly didn't have any connections that would impress the girl sitting across from her, but here Miley was saying that she liked Lilly anyway. Just Lilly, even if there wasn't any reason to.

"Yeah," Miley was saying. "It's...I mean...I'm not happy this happened to you too, but I'm glad someone is here with me and I'm glad it's you. It helps, doesn't it? Not being the only one."

As much as Lilly didn't want to admit it, "It does." She didn't want to think about what it would be like to be here by herself, what it must have been like for Hannah. At least Miley understood what was happening, even if she didn't know everything Lilly had lost, at least Lilly wasn't alone in the enormity of it.

Miley smiled at her, small and unsure. "Do you, um...do you maybe want to do something after school?"

So far they had only done things because Oliver demanded it or because it was something the other Miley and Lilly would have done and it would raise too many questions if they didn't. This was the first time either one of them had suggested they do something outside of that, something that had nothing to do with anyone else.

"I...sure," Lilly said. "We could get something to eat. Somewhere with decent food, I mean."

Miley's smile grew into a full-blown grin and Lilly's breath skipped. "Good," she said, and, "How do you feel about sushi?"

———————————————

The phone call came just after the last bell. Miley was still trying to remember what books she would need for the weekend. The number wasn't in her phone, but Miley knew it.

"Juliana," she said into the phone. "Hang on a minute." She couldn't discuss her contract in the middle of the school hallway. She gave up on picking the right books and shut her locker. She would just take what she had.

Lilly was lounging up against her locker. Miley didn't think she was taking home any books. She grabbed Lilly's hand and started weaving them through the crowded hall towards the exit. She wiggled the phone at Lilly. "I have to get this."

Miley propelled them out of the doors and made sure they'd cleared most of the other students and had a bubble of space around them before she put the phone back to her ear. "What happened?"

She felt a tug on her hand and looked over to see Lilly lifting their joined hands, plus an eyebrow. Miley's dropped Lilly's hand and mouthed, 'Sorry.' She'd forgotten she was holding it. Lilly shrugged.

"I spoke to my contact at the label," Juliana said. "Put some feelers out about the things we discussed."

"And?" There was an uncustomary tightness in Juliana's voice, and Miley thought it meant that if she was back home Juliana would have been cursing up a hurricane.

"And you will not fu—uh, you won't believe what that ba—_man_ had the mo—the gall to say to me."

Miley felt a smile stretching her lips even though she knew it had to be bad news. Who cared about that when Juliana was finally acting semi-normal? "What did he say?"

"Get this. He said – and this is a direct fu—" Juliana coughed and Miley smiled harder. "A direct quote. He said, 'Past performance is no guarantee of future results'."

"_What_?" Indignation flared up and consumed the delight she'd felt over Juliana seeming more like herself. That son of a... "He said that to you? About _me_?"

"I know! I mean, you're – "

"Hannah Montana!"

"I know!"

"Call him back and tell him that if that's the case, this girl will have no problems taking her past performance to another label."

"Oh, I told him that, believe me. Along with a few other things." Miley bet she had. "He said he'd have to get back to me."

"If he doesn't get back to you with a more realistic attitude by Monday, we'll let something leak to the press that I'm having 'creative differences' with the label. I'd like to see what they think my past performance is worth in the middle of a bidding war."

The other end of the line was silent. "What?" Miley asked. Surely Juliana wasn't balking at the strategy. She was the one who had taught it to Miley.

"Nothing, just...where the hell have you been the past three years?"

Juliana wouldn't believe her if Miley told her. "I'm here now."

"I can see that. Those fucking sons of bitches aren't going to know what hit them." Juliana coughed. "Uh, I mean..."

"Juliana," Miley said, smiling broadly again. "I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship."

———————————————

The restaurant was deserted this time of day. Lilly had been there before in her world and it wasn't the best place, but the sushi was edible and they were limited to places within walking distance. They were shown to a table near the windows and started penciling in a few rolls.

"We should get a futo maki," Miley said.

"Why?"

"They're about this big around," she answered, indicating with a curved hand. "I want to see you do your squirrel impression again."

Lilly rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "Having problems?" She nodded at Miley's bookbag and the phone in it. She hoped not. What if Miley went too far the other way and didn't want to be Hannah at all anymore? The Hannah secret wouldn't be worth much if Hannah didn't exist.

"Not really. The label's jerking me around but I don't think they're serious." A waitress brought over a pot of green tea and cups and took the order sheet. Miley poured both of them a cup. "Do you think Oliver will be okay?"

Why did everyone always want to talk about the things Lilly was trying to forget? "He'll be fine," she said, irritated. "He probably thinks we're bitches who stole his friends' lives, but he'll be fine."

"Do you think he does? Think we stole their lives?"

"Probably. Who knows with him."

"It's just...he lost his friends. And if he won't talk to us, he doesn't have anyone to talk to."

"He doesn't need anyone to talk to. Trust me. You don't know him like I do."

Miley looked at her levelly. "He's not your Oliver. Whatever happened between you two, he didn't do it."

That didn't mean he wouldn't. "I know."

The waitress put down a small platter of sushi in the middle of the table and a little plate and saucer in front of each of them. They didn't talk again until she left.

"I'm sorry."

Lilly wished she would stop that. "About Oliver?"

"No, about...about all of this. I know you don't want to be here."

"And you do?" Lilly's plans would be much easier if Miley said yes and Lilly didn't have to worry she'd screwed them up by telling Miley they were staying too soon, or worry about convincing her she really wanted to keep the Hannah secret.

"I don't know. It's different for me. I don't know exactly what your life was like before..." Miley trailed off like she was giving Lilly the chance to share if she wanted to. She didn't.

"But I know you don't like it here," Miley continued, a beat after the silence got awkward. "And on top of that, you have to live the last year and a half over. So I'm sorry. You didn't deserve this."

Lilly wondered what Miley would say if she knew the truth, if she would think Lilly deserved it then. "You didn't either."

Miley's smile was really the opposite of one. "Probably not. But maybe someday I will." She looked dismayed. "Sorry, I – "

"It's okay." Even though it wasn't.

Miley busied herself pouring soy sauce into her little saucer, taking her chopsticks out and snapping them apart. Lilly could tell from how careful Miley was not to look at her that she wanted to say something else. Lilly transferred a piece of sushi to her plate and waited. Finally Miley reached her chopsticks for some wasabi, then changed her mind and set them down instead. "Lilly," she said hesitantly. "I know it's not really any of my business. But the same thing goes for you as Oliver. There isn't really anyone else...and maybe it would help to talk about things some. Is it...is it really so bad here for you?"

Miley had said they were friends. Or something. Miley had said she liked Lilly and asked her here. Lilly picked the tuna off the top of her nigiri with her chopsticks and ate it. "I had to see my dad on Wednesday." The only reason she said it was because to keep thinking they were friends so she'd listen to Lilly about keeping the Hannah secret.

The expression on Miley's face was so distressed it was almost comical. "Oh my god, you did. I'm so sorry, I can't believe I forgot. I was going to ask you about it, and then all this stuff happened with the lawyer and my dad and the history test and then _yesterday_ and I didn't remember."

Lilly shrugged and stabbed at the rice mound, ripping it up into little clumps. She never really ate the rice. "It's okay. I didn't expect you to." She put the chopsticks down and took a sip of green tea. It was getting cold. Green tea was nasty when it was cold.

"But I should have. I'm sorry."

Lilly stabbed the rice into even smaller bits. One of the chopsticks bent and almost broke. "It's not your problem," she said harshly.

Miley stared at her, swallowed, then said. "But that's what I...I mean..." She floundered, looking helpless, and Lilly felt her defensiveness start to wane. Neither of them were very much good at this.

"Sorry."

Miley waited a moment before she spoke again, dunking a piece of the California roll in her soy sauce and slowly chewing it. "So how was he?"

"I don't know." He'd been worried and everything, but that was just because she'd been crying all over him. "His apartment is seriously depressing. I have to go back tonight for the whole weekend."

"Well." Miley casually ate another piece of sushi. "You could probably come over to my house if you wanted a break from it. I mean, the way Robby Ray acts, I'm pretty sure you have a standing invitation."

She'd had one at Hannah's house too, and it had always felt strange. There'd always been a moment right before she went through the door when she expected to be stopped, questioned, told she didn't belong and would have to go. "Thanks, but I'll be okay. I just wish he wouldn't over-react to every little thing."

Miley chuckled and popped a piece of the yellowtail roll in her mouth. "I know. I let Jackson have the last of the Frosted Flakes this morning and they acted like they thought I was trying for a Nobel Peace Prize."

Lilly plucked up a single grain of rice and put it on her tongue, smushed it against the back of her teeth. "Do you ever...I mean, my parents here, it's like they...do you ever think..." That their parents here cared more for those other girls than their parents had for them. There was no way she would be able to get the question out, but Miley knew exactly what she was asking. What else could all that pity and sorrow on her face mean?

"Yes," she said softly.

Lilly looked away from her, down at the wreckage of rice on her plate. She didn't want them to have this thing in common, to make it more true that way. "Really?"

"No," Miley said, and Lilly looked back up at her, surprised. "I mean, I don't think they do. Not really. I decided I don't. But it still feels that way."

Lilly wasn't sure that was something you could just decide. She pushed the ruins of her rice around. Miley would probably be pissed they'd come all the way out here to get something Lilly would eat and then she hadn't, but for once this stupid body wasn't hungry. The conversation had killed her appetite.

The waitress started to hover nearby and Miley's eyes turned panicked. "_Crap_."

"What?"

"I forgot I don't have any money! This place and its freaking _allowance_."

Lilly's eyes widened. She sure as hell didn't have any money either. "I'm broke too." She darted a look at the waitress, who was pretending to wipe down tables a few feet away. "Should we run for it?" They would get busted for sure.

"Wait." Miley pulled out her wallet and opened it, digging through all of the little pockets. "Maybe she has an emergency twenty or something. A-ha!" She waved a credit card in triumph. "I wonder why it was hidden in the back like that." She peered at it. "Oh. It's her dad's. Emergency credit card, then."

Too bad Lilly didn't have one of those. She would've maxed it out and hoped she'd be out of Malibu by the time her mother found out.

"I have got to talk to him about this allowance thing," Miley said while they were waiting for the check to come back. "Some things about this world..." She shook her head, then brightened. "But maybe you could do that, too. Talk to your parents or something. Do something to make this life kind of like yours was. I think we have to."

She was planning on it. "Maybe."

"Maybe...maybe I could help."

The skin of Lilly's arms burned all the way up to her neck and she avoided looking at Miley. She pushed her plate away, glad she had not eaten any more.

———————————————

Her mother's car was already in the driveway by the time she got home. Lilly closed the front door as quietly as possible and slipped upstairs past Ben playing video games in the living room. But she must not have been quiet enough, because Heather appeared in her doorway just as Lilly dropped her bookbag on her desk.

"You're getting home late."

"I went out with Miley. We had sushi."

"That's good. That's great. I hope you had fun." Yeah. Every second here was a real blast. "Lilly...your father called me at work today." Great. It figured her parents would have the kind of divorce where they talked to each other afterwards.

"I need to pack now, Mom."

Heather's silence carried an air of disappointment. Her mother was an expert in that, in letting Lilly know she was one without even having to say a word. "I wish you'd talk to me, Lilly."

"It's going to take me all night. I really need to get started."

Another long silence. Leave, Lilly thought, pretending to look through her closet for clothes.

"Do you want to go shopping?"

"What?"

Heather smiled hesitantly. "I found a little money. We could go to the mall before you leave."

"Wh-how much?"

Her mother's smile turned a little sour. "Eighty dollars."

Lilly weighed her options. She really wanted to go, but eighty bucks? She couldn't even get a decent pair of jeans for that. And she didn't want to go with her mother. "I could go by myself."

"How are you going to get there? And you're not going to the mall completely alone. You're only fourteen."

She missed her car. Cars. She missed her freedom.

"How about this," Heather said. "I got paid this week. Maybe I can figure out how to spare another couple hundred from that. I'll take off early on Monday and pick you up from school and we'll make it into a real shopping trip."

"I thought we couldn't afford it."

"We can't. But I'm guessing this sudden need for new clothes has something to do with whatever it is that's got you acting so strangely the past few days."

"Sort of."

"Are people teasing you about your clothes?"

Lilly didn't answer. They hadn't been, not really, not this time around. But they didn't really need to. The first time had been enough.

"We'll go on Monday, all right? I think I can find enough money that you can at least get a few new outfits."

"You'd really do that?" Why? she wondered. Why would she? Why was everyone trying to help here when last time everything had been a battle?

"Of course I would, sweetie, if you think it would help."

Lilly pulled an overnight bag from a shelf in the closet, slowly set it on the bed. "It would." It would help to look like herself, feel like herself. To have one small thing be normal right now.

"Then we'll go. I miss my sunny Lilly. I just want you to be happy again, honey."

Happy. Lilly wasn't sure she remembered what that felt like. "I really need to pack."

"All right. Let me know if you need anything before you go, okay?"

"Okay. Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

———————————————

**I'm not even going to try to estimate when I'll have the next chapter up since it will just turn out to be a GIANT LIE. It will be up at some point before the end of time. Unless that ends up being, like, tomorrow. But then I guess we'll have other things to worry about. Sorry. I'm very tired.**

**(Also, ngl, I may write a short comedy fic where Lilly is Miley's stalker first. Or possibly fic based off a FML post. I need something to cheer me up right now, and this is not it. This is cutting my soul into tiny little pieces and then stomping on them.)**

**Oh yeah, and there's two chapters left.**


	6. Don't Wanna Be Torn

**Does anyone even still care about this story? Probably not. Oh well.**

**BCRebel: SORRY AGAIN ABOUT THE COMMENT FAIL.**

**estefany: Yes, I will most likely write at least a oneshot sequel to this at some point that will be more L/M.**

———————————————

**Chapter Six: Don't Wanna Be Torn**

———————————————

_Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow  
kind, perhaps in the nook  
of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed  
anyone._

– Bob Hicok, "Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem"

———————————————

**21 – 22 October 2006**

The sun had yet to break above the horizon and the world was still shrouded in a gray so thick it was almost fog. Robby Ray had to flick on his headlights as they pulled out of the driveway. Miley's blood rushed and jumped. She felt like she was waking up from a dream, or coming home after a very long trip. Except she wasn't, of course. She wasn't ever going home from this trip.

But this felt like it, sort of, not the car or the company, but the ridiculously early hour and the destination. The blonde hair spilling around her shoulders.

Robby Ray yawned widely, stuffing his fist in his mouth. Miley leaned forward and fiddled with the radio until she found something loud. She didn't know what it was, but she didn't care. She just wanted something that would pump her up even more.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to the empty road. "You're awful chipper this morning."

Miley shrugged. "Excited to get back in the studio." She rested her arm on the car door and let her fingers dance to the beat from the speakers. She'd gotten copies of the songs from him last night and studied them, so she wasn't worried about not knowing half the material anymore. It had been a relief to push everything else aside and immerse herself in something she was good at, something she understood. To not be struggling to make sense of history or earthworms or her place in this world. "It feels like it's been a long time."

"Coupla weeks."

A week and a half, for her. But so much had happened that it felt longer.

"Are we picking up Lilly?"

Her fingers missed a beat. "No."

"Must be some good waves this morning then."

Miley would have bet her recording contract that whatever Lilly was doing right now, it did not involve a surfboard. "Yeah."

Robby Ray yawned again, even wider this time. "Well, darlin'," he said. "You might be rarin' to go, but I'm gonna need a stop at Starbucks or we're not going to make it to the studio."

Miley moved in her seat, turned the volume on the radio up a notch. "I love Starbucks." And she pretty much always stopped there on the way to the studio.

He shook his head. "We might have to make yours a decaf."

———————————————

The walls in her dad's apartment had to be made of, like, paper or something. Painted tissue paper, maybe. Because her dad was in the kitchen doing god only knew what, and Lilly could hear every. Single. Noise. Cabinets creaking open. Pans being pulled out and set on the stove. Eggs being cracked and whisked in a bowl. The microwave whirring and then beeping once every two minutes because for some reason her father refused to open the damn door and take out whatever it was he'd put in there. She could even hear the coffeemaker dripping. She might as well have been lying on the kitchen table.

Lilly groaned and threw off the covers. She'd already tried melding the pillow over her ears. It hadn't helped. She had to get up early all week and go to that hellhole and now it wasn't even ten on Saturday and she was awake, and that just wasn't _fair_.

She staggered through the living room, past Ben on the sofabed, and into the kitchen to clutch at the doorway. "Dad. Can you keep it down?"

"Lilly! You're finally up!" Finally? Didn't this girl ever sleep in like a normal teenager? "Do you need me to drive you to the beach? What else do you have planned today? What time is Miley coming over? She's spending the night, isn't she?"

Jesus. She did not want Miley here. She did not want Miley seeing this place. It was embarrassing. "I'm going back to bed." She couldn't deal with this right now.

"Don't you want breakfast? I'm making pancakes."

"Smells more like smoke," Lilly muttered, trudging over and popping open the microwave so the damn thing would stop beeping.

"You're just encouraging him by getting up," Ben said as she went back through the living room.

"No one asked for your opinion."

He yawned. "No one asked for you to turn into a bitch."

She ignored him and collapsed on the bed, pulling the covers over her head. She was just starting to fall back asleep when her dad yelled from the kitchen. "Last call for breakfast!"

Lilly moaned and rolled over. She never thought she'd wish to be back at her mother's house, but at least there the kitchen was on another floor and the walls were a lot more soundproof. She drifted off, only to be shaken awake by her father's hand on her shoulder. "Lilly, I'm going to the store. Do I need to get anything for you and Miley later?"

Earplugs, Lilly thought. She peeked at the clock: quarter to eleven. She shut her eyes again but she might as well give up, she obviously wasn't going to get any more sleep this morning.

"Are we picking her up? You didn't tell me what time."

Never if she could help it. Why didn't anyone in this world think the two of them could go more than five hours without seeing each other? She opened her eyes to tell him Miley was busy today but he was already gone.

Almost without thinking about it, she reached for her phone.

———————————————

A bead of sweat gathered at the edge of the wig and slowly rolled down the back of Miley's neck. She tried to ignore it and concentrate on getting through the song. Again. They'd been at this for hours now and Miley was getting tired. A good kind of tired, though. An energized kind of tired.

She loved doing this.

"Okay, let's take five," Robby Ray said as she reached the end. "You're doing great, bud. We've got about an hour left today. You okay to keep going?"

She nodded at him through the glass and slipped her headphones off, walking around the room and stretching for a minute before she gulped down some water from her bottle and dug her cell phone out of her pocket. She'd felt it vibrate halfway through a song earlier.

It was a text from Traci, inviting her to a party tonight. Miley considered it. It might be fun, and Hannah probably needed to be seen. You didn't stay famous by staying out of sight. And what else did she have to do? There was homework, but she was still burnt-out from the history test. And she didn't really care about it. Oliver hadn't answered any of her calls, and Lilly...

The phone vibrated in her hand: a text from Lilly, like the other girl had known Miley was thinking about her.

_My dad wants to know what time you're coming over._

Miley smirked. She could practically feel Lilly's irritation through the phone. _Mine wanted to know why you didn't come to the studio with us this morning._

_You ever wonder if they were siamese twins and oliver just forgot to mention it?_

Miley had been thinking how it must be nice to have a friend you wanted to spend so much time with, someone you never got tired of having around, because you knew each other so well you never had to worry what they were thinking of you. She'd been thinking how she wanted that.

But maybe Lilly didn't feel the same way. After all, they hadn't been best friends for years. They didn't even really know each other, and it was just them now. No need to keep up the pretense of the other girls' relationship if they didn't want to.

_I can get "sick" if you want._

She didn't get a reply right away and she fiddled with the phone, taking it off vibrate and testing the ringer by turning up the volume. After a few minutes Robby Ray came back with half a doughnut and motioned with it to shoo her to the mic. Guess that's a yes, Miley thought, sliding the phone into her back pocket. So what? There were other people she could hang out with, other things she could do tonight. Like going to Traci's party.

She'd only been singing a moment when Robby Ray stopped her. "This is supposed to be a love song, bud," he said through the headphones. "Not a break-up ballad."

"I know. Sorry." It had been a long time since she'd missed her mark. She needed to focus. "One more time. I'll get it."

But she'd barely gotten out the first line when her phone went off, one of Hannah's past hits bleeding into what would hopefully be a future one. "Hannah!" Robby Ray barked.

"Sorry! I thought it was off!" She'd forgotten to put it back on vibrate. She snatched the phone out of her pocket, and it really wasn't her fault if her thumb hit the button to display the text on its way to putting the phone on silent. _Meet me at the beach when you're done._

"You can't interrupt a recording session every time Lilly has something to tell you."

"I said I was sorry. Just a second." She fired off a quick okay to Lilly, and then rapidly typed out a second one to Traci. _Don't know about tonight. Might have other plans._

"Hannah."

She put the phone away and looked up, grinning into Robby Ray's frown. "Let's do this."

———————————————

By the time they finished, there were three messages from Traci on her phone. Miley rolled her eyes through all of them and then called her back.

"Hanna-a-ah," came Traci's nasal whine. "I can't believe you're blowing me off! What other plans could you have that would possibly be more fabulous than my party?"

"I'm doing something with Li—with Lola."

"Oh." Traci packed volumes of distaste into that single syllable. "I suppose you could...bring her along. If you must."

Lilly might like that. Miley thought she'd liked going to the concert last week. "Maybe. We'll see."

Traci let out a dramatic, disgusted sigh. "I keep waiting for you to break up with that girl. I don't know what you see in her."

Miley laughed. "Traci, she's my best friend!" Just an hour earlier she'd been thinking about how they weren't, and now she was surprised by how true saying this felt. Maybe Lilly wasn't her best friend the way people normally meant when they said that. But Lilly was the best friend she had. And Lilly was something to her no one else could ever be.

"That doesn't mean you have to ignore the rest of us," Traci pouted. "You've been MIA since the concert last week! I never know where you get off to all the time."

"Believe me, you don't want to," Miley muttered. Traci was not going to be impressed with stories of earthworm projects and history tests.

"What was that?"

"Nothing! Listen, Traci, if I can't come tonight, I'll make it up to you. We'll do something tomorrow, okay?"

"Shopping?" Traci asked. "And mani-pedis? _Without_ Lola?"

"Sure," Miley agreed, choosing not to think about the whole allowance issue.

"Good. Because you can't just hang out with your little friends all the time. The rest of us need our Hannah-time, too."

"I know, Traci," Miley said. She just hadn't figured out how to give it to them yet.

———————————————

The beach was crowded even for a Saturday afternoon. Lilly struggled across it, trying to juggle an overstuffed beach bag and her stupid effing surfboard as she headed for her favorite spot. The damn thing kept slipping.

"Ow! Jesus, watch where you're going with that thing!" She turned to see a girl her age sitting on a beach towel and clutching her shoulder.

"Watch where you're sitting!" Lilly snapped back, the stomp-off she was aiming for turning into more of a plod on the sand. Even that stopped after a few more yards. Amber and Ashley were in her spot. Of course they were. Lilly hadn't picked the spot. Amber had.

She turned on her heel and went the other way. It was a big beach. There were plenty of good spots. And soon it wouldn't matter. She'd buy her own damn beach.

"Yo, Truscott!" The call came from a group of two boys off to her left. They both had on rash guards and surfboards in the sand beside them and she had no idea who they were. She kept walking.

"Lilly, hey. Lilly!" One of them caught up to her, his hair a sandy mess and zits scattered across his face like a constellation. Ugh. "What's up?"

He was lucky she had on sunglasses because her glare would have seared him all the way back across the beach.

"So...," he said awkwardly when she didn't reply. "You wanna surf with us?"

Not if they paid her. "I'm not surfing."

"Oh. Then why do you have your board?"

She picked up her pace and didn't answer.

"So where's Oliver?" he asked, running a little to catch up with her.

"What the hell makes you think I would know?"

"Jesus, I was just asking. Are you okay?"

"I'd be a lot better if you'd quit following me and go find some Clearasil." That did it. He didn't take another step. Lilly dismissed him from her mind. She wasn't interested in loser Lilly's loser friends. She wasn't interested in loser Lilly's loser life.

She dragged the surfboard down the shoreline until the crowds thinned out. She shouldn't have asked Miley to meet her here, but she hadn't been able to think what else to do. She didn't want Miley at her father's apartment, but she remembered what Hannah's schedule had been like, and she didn't want Miley anywhere else, either. She didn't want her out remembering how much fun it was to just be Hannah and not have to worry about school or allowance or anything else.

Lilly laid out her towel and shed her shorts and shirt. The bruise had mostly faded by now, just a dull, sickly yellow splotch the size of her fist remaining. It wasn't enough to stop her from wearing the passably decent two-piece suit she'd found in Lilly's drawer at her mother's house. They'd stopped there on the way to the beach. Lilly hadn't wanted to. She hadn't wanted to see how her parents acted around each other, how they were now that they were divorced. How that was different from what she remembered.

But she hadn't had a choice. Her father had insisted since she didn't have a suit, and Lilly had ridden there in silence, anxiety building until they arrived and Heather wasn't there. Lilly had run upstairs to grab the swimsuit, and when she'd come back outside the surfboard had been strapped to his roof rack and her dad was smiling at her from the driver's seat, and she just _knew_ that the only reason he even had the damn rack was to haul her surfboard around.

It was almost time for her to turn over when a shadow fell across her head. "You brought a surfboard?" Miley asked.

Lilly cracked an eye open. "Don't ask. How was the studio?"

"Fine." Miley snapped her towel open over the sand and dropped down to sit on it, shedding the layer of clothing over her swimsuit. Lilly flipped over and watched as Miley smeared sunblock on her exposed skin. "Good. I'll be glad when this album is finished. It just feels like it's hers, you know?" Yes. "But the next one will be mine."

That was what Lilly wanted. To make this life hers. "Good." She waited a beat. "My dad's coming back to pick me up in a couple hours." She purposefully didn't say us.

"Oh," Miley said, her face going uncertain. She'd obviously gotten the hint, and was just as obviously disappointed with it. "Okay." She laid down and Lilly let her eyes slide shut, only to jerk them open a second later when Miley moved again, flipping over. She was still a moment, then flipped once more and sat up. "Do you care if I borrow your board? I have too much energy right now."

"It's all yours."

"Thanks." Miley sprang up and grabbed the surfboard, struggling as much as Lilly had to balance it. "And, Lilly?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for inviting me."

Lilly waited until she was sure Miley would be in the water before she sat up. She watched Miley try for a couple waves and wipeout each time, then dropped her eyes to the sand by her towel and started tracing random lines with one finger. Hannah used to say things like that. _Thank you so much for coming_, or _I'm so glad you were here_, or _This would have been awful without you._

She used to say things like that all the time. Like it was something special for her to get to hang out with Lilly. She must have said something like that every time they saw each other. Lilly couldn't remember anyone else ever doing it.

———————————————

Miley was back less than half an hour later, water running off her and the board. She put it down on the sand and sprawled out on her towel. "I already started writing some," she said, like they'd never stopped that earlier conversation. "New songs for the next album, I mean."

Did she want a pat on the back?

"They're kind of about...this, you know? All of it." She let out something that was half a breath and half a laugh. "No one's ever going to have any idea what they mean." Miley sat up and scooted to the end of her towel, burying her toes in the sand. "I'll play some for you sometime."

Lilly swallowed, hearing what Miley didn't say. She'd know what they meant.

"How's your dad?" Miley asked.

Lilly propped herself up on her elbows, then sat up fully. "Ben skipped out already. He said he had stuff to do with his friends. And he's going out tonight." She bet he did the same thing back home. She bet if her parents were divorced, he wouldn't stick around on the weekends he was supposed to be with their dad.

"You didn't have to come today," Miley said.

"No, my dad thought I was anyway," Lilly told her. "And he's been worried about me. I think if I said I didn't want to go to the beach he would've taken me to the doctor." She drew a breath, held it a minute, exhaled. "I think he's doing okay."

Miley lay back on her towel, her eyes shut. She didn't speak for a few minutes and Lilly was about to lie down and resume her sunbathing when Miley said, "Do you...What do you miss?" Her voice was quiet, barely carrying over the hushed roar of the waves.

Lilly missed being important. She missed being in control. "It was my life," she said. She missed knowing what had happened in it.

"Why didn't you get to see them much?" Miley asked. "Your family back home."

Lilly shrugged even though Miley's eyes were still closed. She didn't want to talk about it. And she really couldn't. It had too much to do with Hannah. She wished Miley would stop asking so many questions. Why did she care anyway? "We didn't get along."

Miley rolled onto her side and rested her head on a bent-back hand. "Did they, like, ship you off to boarding school or something?"

"Sort of," Lilly said. "Not really. I kind of just left. I mean, I had money and everything, so it wasn't like I was living on the streets."

"But it's lonely, isn't it?" Miley said. "Being on your own."

What did being lonely have to do with anything? And anyway, there had always been people around, even if Lilly didn't always know their names. She went to tell Miley she hadn't been, but Miley's clear, direct gaze stopped her short. Which one of them was she talking about? Lilly unfolded herself to lie flat, shut her eyes against the sun and Miley, let the heat press her into the sand until there wasn't anything else. "You get used to it," she said, just like she had last time. It was the only answer she had.

Miley rolled onto her back. "I know."

———————————————

A dog ran past Lilly's head, chasing a frisbee and spraying sand all over Lilly's back in the process. Stupid dog. Lilly sat up in disgust and swiped at the sand before checking her phone. Her dad would be here in ten and she'd gotten enough sun for one day. She sat up and squinted out at the water. Miley was out on it again. She'd stayed on the beach with Lilly most of the time, only going back out about twenty minutes ago. The boy Lilly had snapped at earlier was with her, gesturing out at the waves while his friend leaned forward on his board and then pushed up with his hands, demonstrating something. How long had they been out there? Why hadn't Miley gotten rid of them?

Miley glanced up, almost like she could feel Lilly watching her. Lilly raised a hand and Miley waved back, then turned to call something out to the boys. By the time Lilly had pulled her shirt and shorts back on and folded up her towel, all three of them were dripping their way up the beach to her spot.

"Did you see me out there?" Miley asked when they reached her. "I think I'm getting better, thanks to these two."

"Man, you shoulda just asked Lilly to show you," the blond one said. Lilly noticed Clearasil was hanging back, looking everywhere around the beach except at her. She smirked to herself. "She's better than both of us put together."

"I don't surf," Lilly said coldly.

The boy laughed. "Yeah, right," he said. "Maybe in bizarro world."

Moron. This _was_ bizarro world. Lilly ignored him and spoke directly to Miley. "My dad's here."

"Right," Miley said.

"We'll catch you guys later," the blond idiot said. Clearasil was already trying to pull him away by his rash guard. "Hey, do you know if Oken's coming out this weekend?"

"We aren't his damn secretaries," Lilly growled. "Ask him yourself."

Surprise splashed over the boy's face and Clearasil finally succeeded in tugging him away. "I told you, brah," he hissed.

"You could have just told them you didn't know," Miley said, toweling herself off. "They were just asking."

"Whatever." They were losers. "My dad's waiting."

Miley slid her shorts on and tossed her shirt and towel over one shoulder. "I'll help get the board back to the car," she offered. "Since you didn't use it and you had to bring it all the way out here."

"I...thanks."

"No problem." They moved up the beach, Miley balancing the surfboard under an arm. She was better at it than Lilly was. "Hey, you know what you said before?" Miley asked. "Do you think we should?"

"Should what?"

"Call Oliver."

"No! No way. He'd just bitch at us because we aren't his precious friends. Trust me, he doesn't give a shit about us now."

"That's not true," Miley said. "And you should be nicer to him."

"Why?" Lilly asked. "You're nice enough for the both of us."

Miley blushed and a surprised, incredulous laugh bubbled out of Lilly's throat. Oliver? _Seriously_? "Oh my god," she said. "You like him." Miley's blush deepened and Lilly laughed again. She couldn't believe this.

"I don't – " Miley was saying, and Lilly raised an eyebrow at her, grinning. Miley groaned and covered her face with a hand for a second. "All right, maybe I do. Is it really that obvious?"

"You just turned bright red because I said you were nice to him," Lilly told her. "So only to people with eyes. And a brain. But don't worry, that pretty much rules out Oliver."

"I can't help it, I just – " She stopped walking and let the end of the surfboard tilt to rest in the sand, her free hand twisting the hem of her shirt. "He's been trying so hard. He cares about them so much. He cares about Miley, not Hannah. It's like he doesn't even see Hannah when he looks at me, and I've never had a boy do that before. I don't remember the last time _anyone_ did." Lilly opened her mouth to refute that but Miley was already shaking her head to keep her quiet.

"People looked at me and they saw the star," Miley said, watching her intently. "They always forgot there was just a girl there. Even I forgot. I'd look in the mirror and see who they thought I was, who they wanted me to be. I'd look in the mirror and I wouldn't even recognize myself."

There had been another day on this beach, another girl in front of her who looked just like this one. _Come on, look at me. Really, really look at me_. Her growing excitement had mirrored Lilly's. _I knew you'd be able to see the real me_, she'd said.

But Lilly hadn't. And neither had Han—No. Miley. Lilly couldn't think of her as Hannah, not anymore, because that had been her mistake, hers and Miley's. Lilly had been looking for Hannah and Miley had been looking for her best friend, and neither had seen the person in front of them. Would things have been different if they had? Would they have been more to each other than the means to an end?

Lilly looked at the girl standing in front of her now. Her hair was damp and curling, frizzing from the heat and salt. There were wet splotches on her shirt where it touched the swimsuit beneath it and the tops of her ears shone red because she'd forgotten to put sunscreen on them. She was just a girl.

And Miley had been a girl, too. A girl who had lost everything the way Lilly had and only wanted someone to see her. A girl who had reached out to Lilly, trying to salvage something, anything of her life, and Lilly had –

An unwelcome sensation started to claw its way up from Lilly's gut, cold and wet and sharp. "I'm sorry," she said.

Miley shrugged, her face clearing. "It's all right," she said. "It comes with the job. There's nothing you can do about it." Then she laughed. "Or at least I used to think there wasn't." She lifted the surfboard. "Come on, your dad's probably wondering where you are."

_Come on, look at me._

They started walking again and Lilly tried to shove down her guilt, tried to find some excitement over this indication that Miley had reasons to want to keep the Hannah secret, because after all, Lilly was only trying to do what the other Miley had done. She was only trying to get part of her life back.

_I knew you'd be able to see the real me._

But she hadn't. She hadn't at all. She hadn't even looked. She'd never done anything for – "You should come over," Lilly found herself saying. "I mean, our parents already think you're spending the night, right?"

"Right," Miley answered, smiling because she thought she knew who Lilly was.

———————————————

They stopped at Miley's, and while she ran upstairs to pack a bag Lilly wrestled the surfboard into the garage. There was no way she was going back to her mother's to drop it off. Heather hadn't been home when they'd been the first time, but what if she was now? Sooner or later, Lilly would have to see how her parents were with each other here, but she pushed that away, into the future. Any day but today.

Miley raised an eyebrow when she came down and saw the board leaning against the wall. "You can keep the thing," Lilly told her, sick of it, of being forced to haul its awkward bulk around like this world's expectations given physical form. She wanted to be rid of it, them, to break free and run so far she wouldn't be able to see anything even if she looked back.

She hadn't let herself look last time, and now if she did there would be nothing there. One day all of this would be gone, too. History always repeated itself. Already Oliver hated her. How long before her parents realized she wasn't the daughter they wanted, loved? How long before Miley discovered she hadn't really seen Lilly?

But none of that would matter. Lilly knew how to take care of herself. She'd done it before and she would be ready to do it again.

She spent the ride out to her father's apartment just as on edge as she had been during the one to her mother's house. Lilly let her head rest against the window and listened to her dad's questions and Miley's chatter, Miley talking with him so easily that if Lilly hadn't known better she never would have believed this was the first time Miley met him. How did she do that?

Lilly hung back when they got to the apartment, not wanting to see Miley's face when she saw the place. She quickly ushered Miley through the apartment and into the bedroom, which might be small but at least had new furniture in it.

"I told you, it's totally depressing."

"It's not so bad," Miley lied. Or at least, Lilly assumed she was lying, because, seriously, this place was depressing. "He just needs something on the walls. And curtains."

And new furniture, Lilly added silently. And another bedroom, so Ben wasn't sleeping in the living room. It was completely embarrassing. This morning he'd been walking around out there in just his boxers. What if he did that tomorrow morning when Miley was here? Lilly would die. This was a mistake. She shouldn't have let Miley come.

"You girls okay with pizza for dinner?" Alan asked from the kitchen. Add soundproofing to the list of things this place needed.

Miley's worried look made Lilly's hackles rise. "Do you want me to ask for something else?"

"No," Lilly said, then raised her voice slightly so her dad would hear. "Pizza's fine!"

"Are you going to eat that?" Miley asked.

"If I want to."

"Lilly, you should – "

"Don't tell me what to do," Lilly said shortly. Miley shouldn't be here. She didn't know anything about Lilly and they weren't friends, and Miley saying they were something like it didn't mean she really cared about what happened to Lilly. She should stop pretending like she did. "You aren't my mother. I don't need you spoon-feeding me vegetables and making sure I eat all my dinner."

Miley didn't flinch or recoil. She didn't get upset or angry. She merely turned her face from Lilly for a second, and when she looked back her eyes were shuttered. "You're right. I'm sorry. Maybe I should go."

_Damn it_. Why didn't she get pissed? Why didn't she strike back like Amber would have? Why didn't she yell like Heather? Lilly knew how to handle catty attacks and shouting. She had no idea what to do against this blank, featureless wall of withdrawal.

For a moment it made her anger spike, crescendo, rage that she could be considered so insignificant, dismissed so quickly. See? Miley really didn't care. But she would soon. Soon she wouldn't be able to ignore Lilly like this. But that thought brought another with it, a flash of Miley's face back home when Lilly made her final demand, surprise and hurt flaring across it for only a second before they were gone, hidden away behind a barrier like this.

Another memory followed on its heels, Oliver slamming his front door in her face, shutting her away, and it wasn't the people who didn't mean anything that you closed off. Those weren't the ones you had to protect yourself from.

It popped her anger like a soap bubble, that horrible blackness from before on the beach surging up to take its place. Miley was turning away, reaching down for her overnight bag. "Wait," Lilly choked out. "Stay. I shouldn't have snapped at you. You were just trying to help."

Miley left the bag where it was. "It's okay," she said, smiling, forgiving Lilly easily. For this.

Alan called from the other room and Lilly went to see what he wanted, trying to push down the thing with claws, the cold thing that was making her think about what Miley's face would look like this time, how much pain and betrayal would cross it in the instant before she shut Lilly out for good.

———————————————

After they ate, they drifted into the tiny living room. There were sheets and a blanket and pillow stacked on the only chair. Miley did some quick math. Two bedrooms, three people, Lilly's brother on the couch. Lilly caught her looking and that awkwardness from last weekend surfaced, both of them unsure. Miley forced a corner of her mouth up. "Movies again?"

Lilly relaxed. "Sure."

She went to grab some dvds from the cabinet under the TV and Miley exhaled long and silent, relieved the tension hadn't lasted very long. It was so strange – well, everything about this still was, of course – how they could share something so important, and yet in spite of that sometimes they still didn't know how to act around each other. Or maybe because of it.

"My dad doesn't have much," Lilly said. "We could ask him to take us to Blockbuster or something."

"Okay," Miley said. "Or Traci is having a party tonight." She wasn't even sure why she brought it up. She didn't want to go. But for some reason she wanted to see if Lilly would.

Lilly stopped flipping through the dvds. She didn't move for a moment, and then she glanced uncertainly over her shoulder, but she wasn't looking at Miley. She was looking towards the kitchen, where her father was cleaning up the dishes from dinner.

"I think I'm going to stay here," she said. "If we leave..." Ben was out on a date. If they left, Lilly's dad would be here alone. "But you should go. If you want."

It suddenly felt like Lilly was testing Miley just as much as Miley was testing her. "Nah," Miley said casually. "I don't think I could handle Traci tonight."

"But she's – "

"What?"

"Nothing." Lilly popped a dvd out of its case and stuck it in the player. "I just wonder why she hates me."

"She thinks I spend too much time with you."

Lilly chuckled a dry little laugh. "She's the only one." She threw herself on the couch and started mashing buttons on the remote.

Miley sat down next to her, bumping her shoulder against Lilly's. "Yeah," she said. "She is."

———————————————

It was way past midnight when they finally settled down, Lilly in her bed and Miley on the floor in a sleeping bag. The window in Lilly's room looked out over the parking lot – one more depressing thing about this place – and the streetlights set at its corners leaked light into the room around the blinds. It painted two thin strips on the opposite wall, the rest of the room black in comparison.

Lilly tossed around on the narrow bed. The mattress was cheap and uncomfortable, just like the pillow, which was so thin she had to fold it in half or she knew she would wake with a knot in her neck.

"I'm glad we didn't go to the party," Miley said from the floor. "I had fun tonight."

They'd just watched movies all night. Her dad had watched one with them and it reminded Lilly of when she was little and they'd had Family Movie Night every weekend, with Oliver there for half of them. "Yeah," Lilly said. She was glad Miley had picked spending time with her over being Hannah. She made herself concentrate on the second part of that, on Miley not wanting to be Hannah all the time, and wouldn't let herself think how she felt about the first part of it.

"I mean, I always have fun at those things, too," Miley said. "But I forgot how nice it is just to hang out sometimes. My friends aren't really the kind you hang out with. They're more the kind you go out with, to be seen." What was wrong with that, Lilly wondered. Those were the kind of friends she had.

"And in Hollywood sometimes it's hard to tell if people really like you or just like what being friends with you gets them."

Please. That wasn't Hollywood. That was life. You'd think someone who'd lived the one Miley had would be less naïve.

"You know how I'm friends – how I used to be friends with Amber and Ashley?" She waited for Miley's affirmation. "They used to borrow money from me all the time. And back home, I was kind of...connected. I could always get them into parties. And I was friends with them before that, but only because I always did what Amber wanted. You had to if you wanted to be popular." You had to if you wanted anyone to like you.

"There was this one time, Amber wouldn't shut up about how much she hated skaters. How they all smelled and were pathetic losers and she'd rather kill herself than ever be like them. I think she'd completely forgotten I used to skate before I was friends with her." At least, Lilly had told herself that Amber had forgotten, even if Amber's sly, calculating look and sharp smile suggested she hadn't.

"She doesn't sound like a very good friend."

"I guess," Lilly said. Lilly had owed her, because if it wasn't for Amber, Lilly still would have been one of those losers. But it had been a relief not to have to deal with her this week.

"You know they were," Miley said. Lilly didn't have to ask which they. "I read Miley's diaries."

And what had they said? If Lilly read them, would she understand this Lilly, this life?

"Why did this happen to us?" It was such an echo of what Lilly was thinking that for a second she wasn't sure if Miley had really asked it.

_It wasn't you_, Oliver had said. _It was them_. But that didn't answer anything. Why them? "I don't know."

"But do you really...do you think that's the way that happened? That it happened to us because it happened to them? That Miley went first, and then she told Lilly, and that's why you're here?"

"I don't know," Lilly said again. Sometime she thought that was the only explanation that made sense. But it didn't really make sense either. How would Miley have told Lilly? If she could do that, why hadn't she been able to switch back?

Because she would have, she'd hated it there. Lilly had thought about it a lot, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that much. She knew the bleakness she'd seen on Miley's face at parties as she downed drink after drink. She'd spent the past week feeling the same way, like there was no way out and all you could do was grab hold of anything that would let you forget for a few hours, anything that would make this fade away.

So Lilly knew that Miley hated it there. She would have left if she could, she would have come back here, but she must not have been able to. She must have been stuck there like Lilly was stuck here.

"But do you really think Lilly would have gone with her? To a whole different world, just like that? Just because Miley was there? Just because she asked?"

"I think she must have." Lilly wondered if Miley had even asked her to come, or if she had seen that look in Miley's eyes, that hopelessness, and that had been enough.

"I don't think I've ever loved someone so much," Miley said. "That I would do that for them."

"Me either," Lilly admitted. It was supposed to have been her that did it, this other her, but Lilly couldn't even conceive of making that decision, didn't know if she was capable of ever sacrificing so much for someone else. But Oliver had said it so matter-of-fact, as though it was something so unremarkable it need not be said at all, like the sky being blue. _If one of them went, then both of them did_. As though the idea of one without the other was unthinkable.

_If one of them went, then both of them did_. Sure as the sun setting and the tide rolling in.

What must that be like? To love someone like that, to have someone so important to you the rest of your life was something expendable, something to be thrown away between one moment and the next? It seemed almost a kind of freedom to her, a wild, terrifying, painful one.

No. She couldn't even imagine it. But she had done it, that other Lilly had done it, done it for the other version of this girl here with her now.

"Do you think there was anything to what Oliver said?" Miley asked. "About...about them...?"

Except he hadn't really said anything, just like Miley wasn't saying it now. _I always thought they..._, he'd said, and stopped. But they'd both known what he meant.

"No," Lilly said, and then, "Maybe."

"If they're...do you think..." Miley fumbled for the words. "Do you think we...?"

Lilly hadn't been expecting that, not after listening to Miley gush about Oliver earlier. But maybe Miley thought the same things Lilly did, had the same thoughts crowding into her head at night that Lilly couldn't keep out of her own. That there had to be _something_ between them. That they had to be connected somehow, that they _were_ connected, connected through those other girls, through both of them being here.

"We aren't them," Lilly said stubbornly. And it didn't matter, anyway, what those girls were to each other. It didn't matter if they were connected, didn't matter that there was no one else they could have this conversation with, no one else who would understand. That didn't mean anything. Lilly didn't even know Miley. She didn't owe her anything, and she was still going to get her life back.

"I know, but..." The slick nylon of the sleeping bag rustled against itself as Miley climbed out of it and turned on the light. Lilly sat up in bed, pulling her feet in to sit cross-legged when Miley settled in the middle of it and would have sat on Lilly's shins. "But what if they're us? Who we could have been? Who we could be?"

_You're not like this_, Miley had said that first day on the beach back home. _You're better than this_.

So this was better? She was supposed to aspire to this? To going nowhere, being no one, stuck at the bottom of the high school food chain for another three years?

Miley was studying her, eyes moving over Lilly's face, searching for something. Lilly didn't know what and wasn't sure she wanted Miley to find it. She tried to look away but couldn't, found her own eyes searching Miley's face instead.

Miley moved closer. Lilly knew what she was doing and didn't try to stop her. She leaned forward and met Miley's lips with her own.

They didn't move at all. They only stayed like that, mouths pressed together as seconds slowly fell past them into nothing. Then Miley pulled away. Lilly made a noise when she did, a small, unconscious sound she cut off as soon as it started. She flushed with embarrassment and pretended not to see Miley's smile. Oliver had been right. Lilly knew it, and she knew without either of them saying anything that Miley knew it, too.

And this thing between them, whatever it was, it meant something. Lilly didn't know what. She could see that Miley didn't know either. She didn't think either of them was ready to know, to face what knowing would do to them. But they both knew it was there, unspoken but unarguable.

"Well, uh...," Lilly said, and coughed. "If Oliver's smart he'll be a very lucky boy."

Miley laughed. She cupped Lilly's cheek. Just for a moment, but Lilly knew it for the promise it was and turned from it, staring down at the bland pink of the comforter as Miley stood and switched off the light, got back in her sleeping bag. Her voice came out of the dark. "Goodnight, Lilly."

Lilly slid down in bed. She could still feel the warmth of Miley's hand against her skin, the gesture somehow more intimate than the kiss had been. She waited until Miley's breathing steadied and slowed before she answered. "Goodnight."

———————————————

Nothing woke Lilly except a breeze and the faint sounds of traffic through the window. She stretched and looked towards it. Miley must have opened it at some point. A glance at the floor told her this was just like last weekend: Miley was gone, her sleeping bag empty. Lilly yawned, laughing breathlessly through it. Was that girl always going to beat her up?

Now that she was awake, she could hear the voices in the kitchen. In this place, it was impossible not to. She crawled out of bed, the sun streaming in and gliding gold over her skin.

"Good morning, Lillygoat!" Alan greeted her arrival in the kitchen. "I'm trying pancakes again. Miley was nice enough to help."

Lilly ran a hand through her hair, frowning half-heartedly at the nickname but not feeling bothered enough to protest against it. "Smells better than yesterday."

"My mom taught me the trick to knowing when to flip them over," Miley said.

"Apparently it's not when they start to smoke," Alan joked. Her dad's had the worst sense of humor on the planet. Except maybe for Miley's dad.

They were all squeezed around the kitchen table eating when Ben wandered in, scratching his chest. His shirtless chest.

"You could put a shirt on, you know," Lilly suggested. "We have company."

"Miley doesn't count as company," Ben said, taking the only empty seat and spearing a stack of pancakes onto his fork.

Lilly rolled her eyes but caught Miley's tiny smile at his remark. "Whatever. We're trying to _eat_."

"More for me if you can't," he retorted.

Lilly shrugged at Miley like, _I tried_, and Miley shrugged back like, _Brothers_, and they finished before he did and claimed the bathroom first as revenge. He pushed past Lilly when she came out after her shower, muttering about how people who had jobs should get dibs. But really, people who had jobs should either be quicker or get up earlier. He glared when she told him that and she smiled back sweetly at him.

Miley had rolled up her sleeping bag and was flipping through one of the textbooks Lilly had been forced to bring over. "I haven't even thought about homework this weekend," Miley said, holding it up.

"Me either. I'm trying to block out the fact that we have to go back to that crapfest tomorrow."

Miley's phone went off and she glanced at it, then groaned. "It's Traci. I kind of promised her I'd go shopping with her today. It's going to suck wearing that wig for so long."

Lilly stared at her, slightly astonished. She'd _forgotten_. She'd forgotten about Hannah. The whole morning, and not once had she remembered – and even now with Miley saying something, it was hard to –

"What?" Miley asked.

"Nothing. I just...I think I'm starting to get how this world works."

"What are you talking about?"

"Sometimes it's hard to picture you as Hannah," Lilly said, and Miley's grin was so bright Lilly had to look away.

———————————————

The only way Traci would let Miley out of the limo was for her to promise that she would be in attendance at the party Traci was throwing after Hannah's concert next weekend. "I'll be there," she said for what had to be the tenth time. She got the door open and one foot out before Traci's hand on her wrist stopped her.

"Don't let me down, Hannah," Traci said, the nasal tone of her voice making her sound petulant. "There's a lot of people who want to see you. You need to get out more."

"I said I'd be there," Miley said, biting back irritation at the reminder, because Traci was right. She needed to get out more. _Hannah_ needed to get out more. A week and a half and all she'd done was a concert and a morning at the studio. She usually did more than that in a _day_. And she might have thought for a while that this place was like a vacation, might have enjoyed that, but vacations couldn't last forever.

"See you then," Traci singsonged.

Miley tumbled out of the limo, weighted down with bags. It hadn't mattered that she didn't have money. Every place they'd gone to had been happy to give Hannah whatever she wanted free of charge, and Miley had so many bags she could barely get the door open. She kicked it shut behind her and dropped all of the bags on the couch, throwing herself down in the middle of them and groaning. She couldn't wait to get this wig off. Was she ever going to get used to it?

She could hear Jackson messing around in the fridge, singing a mangled version of one of her songs. Off-key. "You know you got the words wrong," she called.

He wandered over, a plate with a sandwich almost as big as his head in one hand. "Nope," he said. "Dad did. My version's better."

Miley snorted and started removing the wig. Jackson took a huge bite out of his sandwich and resumed singing, making sure Miley had a good view of the chewed-up food in his mouth. Miley rolled her eyes. "You're in a good mood," she observed.

Jackson swallowed his mouthful and took another big bite. "That's cuz we won," he mumbled through it.

"Won what?"

"My game."

"What game?"

He swallowed again. "Uhhh, my volleyball game? You're looking at someone who's on his way to regionals."

"You had a volleyball game today?" Miley asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jackson was flabbergasted. "Why would I tell you?"

"So I could go!"

Jackson started to laugh and Miley stared at him, perplexed. He stopped after a moment, more confused than she was. "You're kidding, right? You never want to go to my volleyball games. I mean, that one time, but – "

"You've been to plenty of my concerts."

"Yeah, because Dad makes—uh, yeah, I have, but you always have other stuff going on."

"Not today," Miley said firmly. "I would have gone."

"You were out shopping with Traci!"

"I could have cancelled on her!"

"You would've skipped going _shopping_ to go to my volleyball game?" Jackson said. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

Miley's blood ran cold. "What?"

"Come on, what is it?" he joked. "Alien abduction? Did you get hypnotized? You didn't make a bet with Dad that you could be nice to me for two weeks, did you? How much is he paying you?"

She pulled the wig off and held in her hands, staring with unfocused eyes at the gold pooling there. "I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"Being a terrible sister."

Miley felt his mood shift, all of the levity dissipating. He put the sandwich back on the plate. "No," he said, quiet and serious. "You aren't." He didn't know, though. She had been. "You're just a little...self-absorbed."

"Not anymore," Miley said, looking up at him fiercely. She could say that now. She was going to be better.

Jackson nodded slowly. "Okay," he said.

"And next time I want to go to your volleyball game."

He nodded again. "Okay."

"And I'll talk to Dad. There's no reason you should have to go to any of my concerts."

Jackson snorted. "Miles, he's not gonna let you go alone when – "

"I said I'd talk to him."

"Okay, okay," Jackson said, holding up his hands. "I believe you!"

"Good. And this isn't aliens or hypnosis or a bet with Dad, okay? This is just how I am now. It's how I'm going to be." And she meant it, she wanted to be there for him like she hadn't been before, but there was still the wig in her lap reminding her of everything Hannah demanded from her, and she wanted that, too. If she was going to spend her weekends hanging out with friends and going to Jackson's volleyball games, then during the week she needed to _work_.

She was going to have to talk to Robby Ray about more than Jackson being forced to attend her concerts.

Jackson wasn't saying anything, only staring at her with that same bewildered expression she was becoming far too familiar with. Miley smiled at him as best she could and gathered up the shopping bags to take to her room.

"Miley." She paused on the stairs. "Are you sure everything's okay?" She knew his mind was on the football game last weekend, the kitchen Tuesday night.

"Everything's fine." She took a step and then stopped again. "Hey, Jackson?"

"Yeah?"

"Congratulations." She went up the stairs without looking to see if that look stayed on his face.

———————————————

The closer her dad's car got to the house, the tenser Lilly got. For once, she wished Ben was around to be a distraction. They turned into the neighborhood. As soon as they got to the house, Lilly would jump out and grab the bags in the back. There wasn't any reason for her dad to go inside, and if Lilly was quick, there wasn't any reason for her mother to come out. It had worked on Friday when her dad picked her up.

"This was a good weekend," Alan said, totally oblivious to the tension winding Lilly up. "You're feeling better, aren't you?"

The driveway came into view. It was empty. Reprieve. The tension sagged out of her. "Yeah," Lilly said, because suddenly she was.

He parked the car and glanced over at her. "I'm glad Miley was able to come over. You can never stay upset for too long around her."

Lilly did not want to think about Miley right now. Or any of this. She hopped out of the car and snatched the bags from the back seat. Her mom might come back any second. "See you Wednesday."

The window on the driver's door rolled down. "Lilly, wait," her dad called through it. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"No." She had her bag and Ben's, and she hadn't left any of the doors open. He motioned her around the car and she went, confused.

He got out and before she could start to worry about him sticking around too long he was hugging her, kissing the side of her head lightly. "I love you. Have a good week."

She had the bags in her hands and couldn't hug back, and he let her go before she recovered enough to think to drop them. "Thanks," she finally got out as he climbed back in the car. "You too."

Upstairs, Lilly dropped her bags on the floor and flopped down on the bed, spreading her arms out and gazing blankly at the ceiling. She couldn't believe it had only been two days since she'd been here. This weekend. This place.

The house was so quiet around her it was almost spooky. Her dad should be here. Lilly hadn't seen him for a year and she hadn't let herself miss him, but now he wasn't five minutes gone and she did, because this was where he was supposed to be, this house. It felt wrong without him in it.

The front door opened, jarring the silence, and her mother shouted up the stairs. "Lilly, are you back yet? I need some help unloading the car."

Last weekend Lilly probably would have ignored her, but she hauled herself up and went downstairs. The back of her mother's car was open, grocery bags covering the seats. Lilly grabbed a couple and went inside. She set them on the kitchen counter and watched her mother unloading the ones she'd brought in. She could feel the rest of the house around them, empty. "Do you miss Dad?" The question just sort of slipped out.

Heather stilled, a gallon of milk in her hand, then moved again to put it in the open fridge. "You know I do."

"Why...why did you get divorced then?"

Her mother sighed. "We've talked about this, Lilly."

"Pretend we haven't. Tell me again."

"Lilly." Heather shut the fridge door and looked at her. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Lilly said, avoiding her eyes. "Why?"

"This past week you've been very – "

"Nothing's going on. Never mind. Forget I asked." She ducked out of the kitchen and went to the car for another load of groceries.

When she got back to the kitchen, her mother hadn't moved. "It was just one of those things, Lilly," she said. "We didn't love each other anymore."

"But you miss him."

"We were married eighteen years," Heather said.

"Would you miss me if I left?" Lilly said. It was a stupid question. She knew what the answer was, and anyway it wasn't the question she wanted to ask.

"Lilly, are you sure – "

Lilly shook her head. "Never mind. I'll get the rest of the groceries."

"Lilly." Her mother came and stood in front of Lilly, put her hands on Lilly's shoulders and pressed like she was trying to make sure Lilly stayed firmly on the ground. Like Miley had that day. "You're my daughter. I will never stop loving you."

There it was. The question she'd really wanted answered. Lilly licked her lips. "What if – what if I did something – "

"No," her mom said. "There isn't anything you could ever do."

Lilly stared at her, hypnotized. All she could do was wonder what the house had been like without her in it. "Did you cry when he left?"

"Every night for weeks."

How long had her mother cried for her? Lilly couldn't meet her eyes, focused on the hollow of her throat formed by her collarbone. How long? Weeks? Months? Was she still crying now, in a time and place Lilly could never return to? She cleared her throat. "I'll finish unloading the car."

"Thank you." Lilly thought Heather would let her go, but instead she hugged Lilly to her. "Lilly, whatever's going on...remember I love you. And I'm so proud of you."

That was wrong. Her mother wasn't proud of her. She hadn't been for years. Lilly hadn't thought there was any way she ever would be again.

_You're not like this. You're better than this._

_What if they're us_? _Who we could be._

But Lilly wasn't that person, she wasn't, and she didn't know how to be.

———————————————

Miley was passing by the head of the stairs when she heard them talking down in the kitchen. She didn't pay any attention at first, except to think that maybe she shouldn't be so hard on Jackson for looking bemused all the time, because it had been over a week and she still felt a trace of surprise that Robby Ray was there. Even though she knew he wasn't her father, she kept expecting him to vanish for weeks at a time instead of hours, with nothing more than a note on the fridge or a message on her voicemail pointing to his whereabouts.

Her attention snagged on their words when she heard Jackson say her name. She crept down the stairs to hear better, easily avoiding the spots that creaked. This house might be decorated different, but underneath it was still the same. Part of her couldn't help thinking that must hold true for the people here as well.

"...your sister," Robby Ray was saying.

"No, dad," Jackson answered. "I'm not _complaining_. I'm just saying lately she's...different."

Fear froze her into a half-crouch on the stairs.

"I don't know what you expect, boy," Robby Ray countered. "She's a teenage girl. They change about ten times a day." A cabinet opened and shut.

"But this isn't like that," Jackson insisted. "This is like the opposite of that. It's _anti_-teenage-girl mood swings."

"Look, I know she's been acting a little strange, but – "

"Dang it! I gotta go! I'm gonna be late for work, and you know what Rico'll do to me if I am."

Miley held her breath as he raced out the front door, afraid he'd look back and see her on the stairs. She sat down on one after he was gone. What would the rest of their conversation have been like if Jackson hadn't left? Should she go down there and try to talk to Robby Ray about the Hannah situation, or would that just draw more attention to how _strange_ she was acting?

Neither of them had sounded upset about it, though.

She got back up and headed for the kitchen. "You're back," she said, sliding into one of the chairs at the island.

"I just went to grab some stuff for dinner," he said, and pulled some spices from the rack to set next to the package of ground beef on the counter. "It doesn't take too long."

"I know. But sometimes things have a way of snowballing."

He looked confused, then grinned. "You know, you're right. I did stop for gas, too."

Yeah, that was what she meant.

"Hey," he said. "Guess who's going to be on Taylor Kingsford this Tuesday?"

"Who?"

He squinted at her. "What do you mean, who? Same person it always is when I ask you something like that. Hannah!"

Hannah had to perform on Tuesday and she was just finding out about it on Sunday? "When were you planning on telling me?"

"Uh...now?" he hazarded. "I thought you'd be excited."

"I am," she assured him, though she was actually wondering if Miley really still got excited about something like that. "But I wish you'd given me a little more warning."

"Sorry, bud. I didn't realize you needed warning. Next time I'll let you know as soon as I find out."

"You could also let me know what's been going on in those meetings you had while you're at it."

Robby Ray quit pulling things from the fridge and looked across the island at her. "Really? You're interested in the boring business stuff now?"

"It's not boring. It's part of being Hannah. I need to know what's going on with her."

"Mile, you know I tell you when anything important happens."

"That's too late. I need to know about the important things before they get decided."

"Now that's not fair, darlin', you know I've never just up and decided something major about Hannah without checking with you first."

He wasn't getting it. "But we don't always know what will be major. I mean, look at what happened with Juliana. That could have ended up costing me a lot of money."

"That could have been avoided if you'd bothered to tell me you wanted some of your songs on the next album."

It was the first time she'd heard that edge in his voice and she backed off, softened her reply. "Maybe we need to talk more about Hannah, then," she said quietly. "Both of us."

She didn't want him thinking she was trying to do an end-run around him, cut him out. She didn't want his job. She'd spent months trying to do both hers and his and she never wanted to be in that position again. But she also didn't want to be in a position where she'd have only the most basic information about her career if she had to do it without him.

Robby Ray nodded slowly. "All right. I didn't know you wanted to be so involved in everything."

"I do." She took a deep breath and decided to go for it. "And speaking of more involved, I think Hannah should be."

"What do you mean?" He had an onion now, peeled it quickly and started chopping it on a cutting board he produced from one of the cabinets.

"I want to do more with her. Finish the album sooner. Tour more, do more promotion. I need to be out there every day."

"That's going to be kinda hard with school and everything."

"I know. That's...that's why I think I need to switch to homeschooling."

His chopping slowed. "That's a big step." Thunk. Thunk.

"I know. I've thought about it a lot. It's the right thing for me to do."

He didn't say any of the things she'd thought he'd say. He didn't say that her education was more important than Hannah so she should spend more time on it. He didn't say that going to school like a regular kid was part of the normal life the Hannah secret was supposed to protect. He didn't say that or any of the ten other things she'd prepared arguments to counter. He said, "What about Lilly and Oliver?"

She was doing this for them, sort of. For herself, yes, but also for them and for Jackson. "I'll still see them. They're my friends." At least, she hoped Oliver would be, and she and Lilly had been joined together by this in a way that nothing could ever erase. Not going to school with them didn't mean she would lose them. And –

She wondered if Lilly's parents would let Lilly homeschool with her. Lilly would probably kiss her if Miley got her out of having to go to school. She hadn't made it a secret how much she hated being in that building.

"I'll see them after school and on weekends," she said, making a mental note to ask Lilly about homeschooling later, once she got some of the details worked out. "But I need to be doing more with Hannah, and I can't do that if I'm in school all the time. I need to be in the studio more. I need to be able to spend a day doing interviews or a week in Europe doing promotions or touring or both, and that can't happen if I'm chained to a desk Monday through Friday."

Out of all that, the whole – very convincing, she thought – speech, he came back with, "You want to be in the studio more?"

"Of course I do! I _need_ to be. Everyone loves Hannah now, but they're not going to wait around forever for new stuff. You know how fast this business moves, and this is what I want to be doing the rest of my life, I need to take advantage of Hannah's popularity now. I need to start getting my stuff out there. I need to make sure I start appealing to a broader audience before I'm on one of those where-are-they-now shows as a flash-in-the-pan star who used to be hot with twelve-year-old girls." He was her manager. Wasn't he supposed to be the one thinking about things like this?

"Honey, I don't think that's going to be a problem. First of all, my songs are too dang good to ever go out of style." She forced a smile, not understanding why he couldn't just take this seriously. "And second of all, you're too dang talented for people not to like you. I don't think anyone believes that the girl they call America's songbird is a flash-in-the-pan."

America's what? She'd never been called anything like that.

"I guess I'm just a little worried about how you're suddenly wanting to throw so much of yourself into this. I know Hannah is important to you, but school has been, too. You were the one who wanted it set up like this in the first place so you'd have the option for a normal life. And now out of the blue Hannah's it? She's what you want to do for the rest of your life? You're sure?"

Miley faltered. Hannah wasn't _it_. She didn't want Hannah to be it, to be everything. But she did want Hannah to be more than what she was here. Was that possible? How long would she be able to keep her identity secret? What would she do if she had to choose between being Hannah and being Miley? She didn't want a normal life. She'd never wanted that. But she didn't want to give up a second time the things Hannah had cost her.

She didn't know what she'd do if she had to choose. Not now. For now she would take all of both that she could, and hope that when she reached that point she'd know. And for now she knew what she had to say to get what she wanted. "I'm sure."

"You know, your life is going to be a lot different if you do this." She had to bite her tongue to stop a laugh. This life was already more different than he would ever know.

"And what you're talking about will be a lot of work. It would be for anyone."

"I know. I can do it."

He shook his head but said, "I'm sure you can. All right, I'll start looking into getting you a tutor. But I think you should at least finish out the school year."

It was October. She wasn't waiting that long. "The semester."

Robby Ray got a green pepper and chopped half of it into a pile with the onion before he answered. "All right. But you have to keep your grades up until then."

Miley thought about the history test she probably hadn't gotten a B on and all the homework she hadn't done this weekend. She would have to start on it now. "Okay. But see if you can get me in the studio more on the weekends. I don't want to lose too much time."

He stopped chopping the pepper and put the knife down. "Miley, you're only fifteen. There's plenty of time. You don't have to in such a hurry to work every second. You don't have to be in such a hurry to grow up."

"I'm not in a hurry," she told him. "I'm already there."

She could feel his eyes evaluating her, clouding over with questions. "Miley..."

"Look, I – I know it seems like this is coming all of a sudden. But like I said, I've thought about it a lot. This is what I want, and I'm going to work until I get it." Even if she had to do it without his help.

"I know you will," he said. "And I know you'll get it. You're gonna go off and leave your poor old dad behind, aren't you?" His voice was tinged with sadness and resignation and amusement all at once, a look on his face like a shadow of the one that had been there the night she played her songs for him.

"No," she said, even though she knew he didn't mean it that way. "No, Daddy."

"It's all right, bud. That's what you're supposed to do."

She clenched the edge of the island. "No," she said stubbornly. "I won't leave. I'm not going anywhere."

He smiled. "Me neither, baby girl," he said, and for the first time she let herself believe.

———————————————

**Only one more chapter left, thank god. Hopefully it won't take as long as this one did. I'm putting myself on a writing schedule, so...we'll see if that helps.**

**I decided I don't think I can watch season four. The last episode was just so, so horrible. Y'all should be glad I'm posting this now instead of earlier this week or after part two airs tonight, because then you probably would have been subjected to an extremely long rant. It made me so angry. (I don't think I've reacted to an episode this strongly since **_**When You Wish**_**... And I think we all know what happened with **_**that**_**.) There's just nothing good left anymore. So, yeah. I QUIT, SHOW.**

**(...Just the show. I will still be writing fic, if anyone cares about that distinction.)**


	7. So Far From Yesterday

**So the writing schedule didn't help. I'd like to apologize to everyone, first because of how abysmal I was about updating this, and second because I feel like this story could have been a lot better than it is. I'm sorry for that.**

**But now it will be finished, at least.**

—

**Chapter Seven: So Far From Yesterday**

—

_I admit that I have spent some time in confusion__  
__Not knowing what is or is not illusion__  
__Riddled with myself and destruction__  
__Astray_

_I do believe that something somewhere sent me__  
__To you  
Astray_

–I Am Kloot, _Astray_

—

**23 – 24 October 2006**

Miley's history test came back with a big red C- on the front. Crap. She really thought she'd done better than that. She shoved it inside her notebook and for one second was glad that Oliver still wasn't speaking to them. It meant he wouldn't ask about it. He probably wouldn't have anyway, though. He'd only cared about what the grades would do to his friends, and it was obvious now they wouldn't do anything.

Corelli passed out the last of the tests and went back to the front of the room. Lilly flipped hers towards Miley and Miley caught the D on it, along with Lilly's disinterested shrug. Miley turned back to her own desk, flipped the cover on her notebook up enough to peek at her grade. Maybe Lilly didn't care, but Miley did. These grades didn't matter anymore for Oliver's friends, but these were their lives now, hers and Lilly's, and the grades mattered to them.

She could hear her father saying, _And now Hannah is it?_

But she didn't want Hannah to be it. She didn't want to end up in her twenties with a sixth grade education. She wanted options.

She'd been thinking about looking up the agency that had sent her Corelli, leaving their number where her dad could find it, but now she decided against it. He would find someplace better. He obviously cared about her education; he'd find someone good, someone who would make her work.

She just had to make sure her grades didn't drop so much before then that he changed his mind about letting her do this.

After class, Miley waved Lilly into the hall without her and went to talk to Corelli.

"Miss Miley, Miss Miley," he said. "I was hoping you'd come see me. Your work on this test left a little something to be desired."

Miley clutched her notebook to her chest behind crossed arms. "Yes, sir."

"You kinda dropped the ball on this one." He mimed dribbling a ball and then losing control of it. Corelli was so weird. "And you're usually not a ball-dropper. You're usually a ball..." He thought for a second, then grinned. "Shooter!" He pretended to throw a basket. "What happened?"

What hadn't? Miley hugged the notebook tighter to her. The spiral wire cut into her arm. "I'm sorry. I...I had kind of a tough week last week. Some...family issues." Among other things.

He looked concerned. "Do you need to talk to someone? The guidance counselors – "

"No," Miley said quickly. "Everything's fine now." As fine as it was going to get, at least for a while. "But thank you. I was just wondering if there was something I could do for extra credit."

"Hmmm. Extra credit." He held out a hand and Miley stared at it. Was he asking for a bribe? He made an impatient gesture towards her notebook. Oh. She fumbled through it and pulled the test out, handing it to him. He looked through it for a couple minutes, then gave it back. "Pick one of the essay questions you got wrong and write me a five page paper on it."

Miley paled. "F-five pages?"

"By Wednesday. And I'm going to replace your test grade with whatever you make on the paper. So don't blow it."

Great. A five page paper in two days. She might have to cancel Taylor Kingsford. No, she couldn't do that. She would go without sleep before she'd cancel Hannah's first appearance in weeks.

This was so much harder than she'd thought. She used to think Miley was slacking off, using her double life to put off doing what she needed to do for her career. But it wasn't like that at all. This wasn't a way to shirk anything, to float by without having to deal with anything unpleasant. This was difficult, and it was something Miley must have chosen, over and over, always giving up part of each world so that she could have some of both.

And she had chosen, too. It was something of a relief to realize that. Miley had started to feel a little like she had gotten swept up into Hannah, that it had carried her along without her knowing. She had started to worry it might happen again. But it hadn't happened that way. Being Hannah was something she had chosen. Every day she had chosen it, chosen it because she loved it.

And that was another relief, because it meant that, this time, she could choose differently if she wanted to. Whenever she wanted to. "Okay. Wednesday. Got it. Thanks."

She was almost out of the classroom when he called after her. "Miley." She stopped and waited. "You can tell Lilly the offer stands for her, too."

"I will," Miley promised. "Thanks again." She would tell Lilly. She just didn't know if she'd be able to convince her to take it.

—

Lilly had half expected her mother to forget about their shopping trip, but there she was when school got out, up near the front of the line of cars like she'd gotten there extra early. "I've got this thing with my mom," she told Miley, nodding at the car. They said goodbye and Lilly started for the car, not exactly dragging her feet but not exactly making a run for it either. She had this idea...

Lilly slid into the car, shoving her bookbag down at her feet. The history test was in her notebook and the bag was zipped closed, but Lilly still gave it a little kick to make sure it was pushed up under the dash and out of her mother's sight. They'd fought over her grades more times than Lilly could count, and Lilly didn't want to fight. Not now.

"How was your day?" Heather asked. Lilly could tell she was putting extra effort into sounding cheerful.

"Fine. You know. School."

Heather tried to pull out of the line into the open lane but had to stop as another car came up from behind them. "Are you ready to shop?" Lilly nodded cautiously. She wasn't sure how her mother would react to her idea. "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know."

"There's the mall, or..." Lilly shook her head and Heather frowned a little. "Well, what do you want to get?"

Lilly looked down at her lap, then peeked at her mother from the corners of her eyes. "Curtains."

Heather's frown deepened. It wasn't an angry frown, just confused, but it still made Lilly nervous. "Curtains?"

"Yeah. And...maybe some pictures or something. You know, to hang on walls."

"Lilly, I thought you wanted clothes."

Lilly almost gave up. It was a stupid idea anyway. But then Heather got into the other lane. She had to slam on the brakes once she did, because the free lane had kind of turned into another line. From their new position, Lilly could just see past the windshield of the SUV to their right. Oliver was sitting on a bench in front of the school. Miley was talking to him.

"I changed my mind," Lilly said.

"You've been throwing fits for two weeks over not having anything to wear and now all of a sudden you decide you'd rather redecorate your room?"

"It's not for my room. It's...it's for dad. For his apartment."

The frown straightened out and thinned, but somehow Heather looked unhappier now. "Lilly, I don't think – "

"You said you could find some money."

"I did. But your father has his own money. It's not appropriate for me to be buying him curtains."

"But he won't do it himself. And you haven't seen his place. It's like no one's really living there. Like he could just disappear tomorrow."

"Your father is not going to – "

"I know. I just – please, Mom. I know it's weird, but I want to do this. You can take it out of my allowances or something. And I promise, I won't complain about my clothes anymore. I won't complain about anything, I'll do my homework." She'd even write that stupid make-up essay Miley was trying to talk her into. "I'll – "

"All right, Lilly. All right."

Lilly fell silent. Heather put on the turn signal and took a left away from the school. And the mall. "All right," she said. "Curtains."

—

Oliver slouched against the metal bars of the bench, stretching his legs out in front of him and keeping his attention on his shoes. He didn't want anyone bothering him and it was too windy to get any of his books out. Usually he would've had his phone to mess around with, but who was he going to call? His best friends? He was pretty sure his service plan didn't extend to where they were.

"Hey."

Oliver looked up. It was Miley. He sat up straighter and crossed his cast over his stomach. "I'm just waiting for my mom to pick me up." She'd dropped him off and picked him up Friday and dropped him off again today even though he knew it was screwing up her schedule at work. She was 'worried about him' and told him so. Constantly. He wished he could explain to her that it wasn't _him_ she should be worried about.

"Do you mind if I wait with you?" Miley asked uncertainly.

He did, but she looked so hopeful he couldn't come right out and say so. Which kind of pissed him off. "It's a free country," he muttered. Maybe she'd take the hint.

She sat down next to him. Miley never had been able to take a hint, or even an anvil aimed at her head.

She could sit next to him, but she couldn't make him talk to her. Oliver knew none of this was her fault, but he didn't care. Everything still hurt too much.

_Maybe they didn't have a choice_, this girl who looked like Miley had said. And maybe Miley hadn't. But she had been there so long, she had known she wasn't coming back. _I think that's why Lilly left_, the girl who wasn't Lilly said, and he knew she was right. Lilly must have known, too. She must have known what she was doing, and Oliver was so angry at her it choked him. He was angry at her for leaving, angry at Miley for taking her, angry at both of them for being gone.

So he didn't care if it wasn't this girl's fault. He sat stubbornly in silence, hoping his mother would appear before she could get up the nerve to break it.

"I'm sorry," she said after a while. There was still no sign of his mom's car.

He really didn't want to talk about this. But he had to ask. "What's it like there? In your world."

She slid her fingers through one of the gaps in the bench seat and wrapped them around the slat. "Are you sure you want to know?"

Oliver nodded. He wanted to know what Miley and Lilly were dealing with. What their lives were now.

"I'm...I was just Hannah there. But you already knew that." He nodded again. "My dad is remarried." Her voice was so flat that he didn't think for even a second that was a good thing. "He's gone most of the time. Jackson's gone all the time. The Hannah stuff drove him crazy so he left."

"So you're by yourself?" He couldn't picture Miley without her family.

"I was fine," she said defensively. Which pretty much meant she hadn't been. "I don't know that much about what Lilly's life was like. She said her parents aren't divorced there."

That had to be good, right? Lilly had hated it when her parents separated. "And I think...I think she was well-off. Financially."

And she was friends with Amber and Ashley.

"Do you think they're okay?"

Oliver heard the way Miley's breathing changed and knew she didn't want to answer the question. "I don't know," Miley said after a long pause. At least she wasn't going to lie to him. "I think, my guess is, that Miley doesn't like it there very much."

Miley was stuck there by herself without her family or friends. "Of course she doesn't," he said, then relented enough to add, "No offense."

"None taken," Miley said lightly. That _was_ a lie, but he couldn't hold it against her. She went on as though he hadn't just basically called her life crappy. "Listen, she might not like it very much, but there wasn't anything wrong with my life. It wasn't terrible. I mean, do you know how many people would kill to be Hannah? She'll be all right. Lilly, too."

There was no way she could know that. She only knew what this Lilly had told her. And this Lilly had lied to them.

He fell back into silence, looking again for his mother's car.

"Oliver." He glanced at her but didn't answer. "I know it's hard," she said. "I know you just lost your best friends. I know how much that must hurt. And I know talking to me probably doesn't help. But I don't want to lose _you_. You're one of my best friends."

"You've only known me a week and a half!"

"So? It was _this_ week and a half. My life – I – you know what happened. Lilly and I wouldn't have made it without your help."

"I didn't do it for you. And I sure as hell didn't do it for her."

"I know. You had no reason to help us, and we didn't make it easy. But you did it anyway because you thought it would help your friends. Do you think any of my friends back home would have done that for me? I've never even had a conversation with most of them about anything deeper than what we're wearing to the next awards show. You _care_. You're a good friend, Oliver. You're a good person."

She paused but he couldn't think of what to say. Miley gripped the bench tighter and said, "I really like you Oliver. A lot."

His mind was still back on what she'd been saying before. It took him a moment to realize what she meant. He wasn't expecting it, he never would have expected it from Miley, and he said the first thing he thought. "I...you know I don't feel that way about Miley."

"I'm not her," she said sharply.

"I know that," he said. "I know you aren't. But every time I look at you I see her. I can't help it. That's _her_ body. And I'm sorry, but I just don't see her that way. Or you."

Oliver didn't realize he was tensing up for an explosion until she smiled sadly at him and said, "It's okay. I understand."

"You do?" Miley would have thrown a fit, sucked Lilly into it, and then sulked for at least a week. "You really aren't like her."

Miley surprised him again by shaking her head. "Only sometimes," she said despite having been so insistent on that point just a second ago. "Other times I understand her so perfectly it's clear we're the same person." She saw his skeptical expression and laughed softly. "I guess she would have reacted differently?"

"That's the understatement of the year."

Miley hmmed, contemplating that. "I think I might be more used to seeing things in the long term than she is."

Now Oliver laughed, though it wasn't a particularly humorous one. Miley and long term weren't words that went together. Miley could barely figure out what the consequences of her actions would be twenty minutes in the future.

"And, Oliver, I want you to be there. Long term. Whatever way you can be. You're one of the only people who knows who I am, who knows what happened to me. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose you."

He thought about that for a moment. "You're one of the only people that knows what happened to my friends."

Miley exhaled slowly. "Yes."

Oliver nodded. He didn't want to lose that either. "We can try," he said. "It...it might take a while, okay? And I'm not promising I can. But we can try."

"Okay," Miley said. "Thank you. And if you ever want to talk... "

"I can't," Oliver said quickly. "Not yet." It was too soon, all of this still cut too deep for him to be able to talk about it. He needed to mourn them alone first. "But thank you."

He saw his mother's car finally, as it advanced far enough in the line of cars that stretched out into the street to make the turn into the school's pick-up area. It would take another few minutes for Nancy to reach the area in front of the school where Oliver was waiting, but he stood in preparation anyway.

"Will you sit with us at lunch tomorrow?" Miley asked.

Oliver squinted down at her. The wind ruffled his hair and clothes and skated over his skin, except for the dead area covered by the cast. "Miley. We can try, but I'm not – " He shook his head. "I can't do it with her. She knew this whole time you wouldn't be going back. She knew from _day one_ and she didn't say anything."

"But that was because – "

"I don't care! I don't care about her reasons. She should have told us. She shouldn't have let you go on thinking you would go home. She shouldn't have let me think my friends would come back."

"She didn't mean – "

"It was _cruel_, Miley, and there isn't any excuse that will make it otherwise."

"She's trying to deal with this the same as we are."

Oliver nodded. "And I hope she does. But I can't with her. I just can't." Besides what she'd done, being around Lilly was too painful. She had meant more to him than Miley. But it seemed like it would be disloyal to admit that, even though he knew the girl next to him wouldn't take offense. Miley would have. "I have to go. My mom's here."

Her car came to a stop a few feet from them, the brakes squealing slightly in protest. Oliver started forward.

"Hey, Oliver?" He turned and waited. "Are you going to let anyone sign your cast?"

The wind pushed his hair from his face and stung his eyes. For several minutes he could only breathe and refuse to blink against it. "Bring a pen," he told her. "You can sign it tomorrow."

—

There was the essay, and a mountain of other homework Miley needed to get done, but she stayed on the bench long after Oliver left and the school grounds mostly emptied of other students. A couple of other freshmen were still hanging around, constantly checking their phones and sighing in disgust that their rides hadn't shown up. Miley watched them, trying not to laugh.

She could understand why Oliver was upset with Lilly, and she could understand why he thought Lilly should have told them from the beginning that this was permanent. She could even see how, from his perspective, not telling them was, as he'd said, cruel.

But Miley wasn't upset. She was glad. She would never tell Oliver, because that too would be cruel, but she was happy Lilly hadn't told them what she suspected right away. And she didn't even care why Lilly had done it.

She couldn't live Miley's life. She knew things Miley didn't, was surer of things it seemed Miley still questioned. Hannah was more important to her; high school less. So she would change this life a little. But she would keep the important things. She would keep the Hannah secret. She would try to keep Miley's friends, keep Hannah from driving Jackson away. And if Lilly had told her she was stuck here the first day, Miley didn't think that would be true right now.

If she'd known from the beginning, she wouldn't have been at the beach the past two weekends or in school last week. She wouldn't have spent ten minutes with Oliver. She wouldn't have gone to that football game with Jackson or talked with her dad. If she'd known, she probably would have ripped the wig off her head during the concert that first Friday night and that would've been the end of it.

Things here weren't perfect, but they were _good_, and the thought of how casually she would have thrown all of it away without even knowing it could be like this scared her more than waking up in a different world had. So Miley wasn't angry at Lilly for not telling them right away. She owed her. Lilly had given her the gift of this life as much as whatever it was that had brought them here.

And it would have been too much. Coming here, knowing she wasn't going back, it would have been too much to handle all at once. She didn't know how Lilly had done it. She could understand what Lilly had said about not wanting to believe it, about trying to keep the truth of it from herself. Sometimes it was better not to know. Kinder. Not cruel.

That was why she hadn't told Oliver what she'd guessed about Lilly's life there, that she didn't have her family there any more than Miley had. What good would it do? Oliver couldn't help her. All he could do was worry, and never stop, because he would never know if she was all right.

The first few days she'd been here, the only thing that had kept her together was the hope that she would go back. That was all Oliver had. Hope that his friends were okay. She didn't want to do anything to take that from him. Maybe in time it would be enough to stop him worrying, hurting.

The freshmen's late rides had come and gone by the time Miley got up from the bench. She had that essay to get done, and her father would be making dinner. She would eat it with him and Jackson, and tomorrow morning she'd walk to school with Lilly and sign Oliver's cast. Tomorrow afternoon she would perform on Taylor Kingsford.

Miley would work on things with Oliver. She would finish the semester, she'd see if Lilly would homeschool with her. She would figure out how to make Hannah work, how to keep herself and her family while she did. She would find a way to fit every part together, to have the best of her world and this one.

She was really starting to like that song.

—

It was the first time in almost two weeks that Oliver was asleep when his alarm went off. He rolled out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom and back, then surveyed the state of his room. Friday night he'd gotten so mad that he couldn't stop crying, and he'd torn the skateboarding posters off his walls and put away everything that reminded him of Lilly or Miley, which was most things. The room was pretty bare now.

And there was still a hole in his wall.

He went to the closet and stretched up with his left hand. He'd wrapped everything in an extra blanket and shoved it up on the shelf in there. He pulled it down, swinging it out so he didn't hit himself in the head.

He didn't want most of the stuff in the pile; he couldn't even look at it. But he found the framed picture he had of the three of them from eighth grade and set it on his desk. He studied it for a minute, then reached out to tip it over, face down. After he got dressed, though, right before he left the room, he put it back up. And he put the blanket with everything else on the floor of his closet, where it would be easier to get to.

"Mom, I'm walking to school today," he said downstairs, and left before she could insist that she give him a ride.

Miley had brought a Sharpie, one of the really thick ones. "It's weird," she said, "because you'd think Jackson would have broken every bone in his body at least once by now, but I've never actually signed a cast before."

The bell wouldn't ring for another few minutes, and the classroom they were in was empty. "Not even for a fan?"

"Nope. I did get a jockstrap once. The guy tried to claim it was his sister's."

Oliver laughed and she bent over the cast, being painstakingly careful as she inscribed her name across the moss green of its surface. "Did you sign it?"

"Ew, no way. I didn't even touch it." She added a flower on either side of her name and then smiled at him sheepishly. "Sorry. Boys probably don't want flowers on their casts."

Oliver couldn't help thinking that Miley would have dotted her i with a heart, which was even worse than flowers. "It's okay."

Miley wrapped her fingers around the tips of his fingers and squeezed. "Heal well," she said softly. Her eyes were holding his and he knew she meant more than his hand. Oliver thought of the picture on his desk, looked away and moved his arm.

"Are you sure you won't sit with us at lunch?"

"I'm sure." The trouble with trying to be friends with Miley was that Lilly would always be there too.

"I...I could sit with you instead of Lilly."

"No." This was okay. He could do things like this, little things. They had half an hour for lunch.

"All right." Her voice was barely there; she coughed under the cover of the first bell ringing and it strengthened. "I'll see you later then."

He wanted to just write her off. He wanted not to care. But he couldn't. "Miley? Keep an eye on her for me, okay? Make sure she's all right."

Miley nodded, her face so sympathetic and understanding that he wished again it was his Miley standing there instead, Miley who would have been so caught in her own pain she wouldn't have had room for his. "I will."

—

If Miley didn't want people knowing how she felt about Oliver, she should trying being less obvious. Like maybe not staring at him all through lunch.

"You could go sit with him, you know."

Miley whipped her head around and blushed. "What?"

"Oliver. You could go sit with him." Which would leave Lilly sitting by herself in the middle of the high school cafeteria. But whatever. Everyone here already thought she was a loser, so what difference would it make?

"No. I'd rather sit with you."

Lilly smirked. "Please," she said. "You have a crush on him, you expect me to believe you don't want to be around him any chance you get?"

Miley looked at her, and for the barest second Lilly saw something in her eyes, a knowledge and power that pinned her in place, something far more intrusive and aggressive than what had passed between them in Lilly's bedroom.

Then Miley glanced back towards Oliver and it was gone. "He told me not to sit with him," she said, as though nothing had just happened.

Lilly imagined Miley looking at her like that when she threatened to reveal the Hannah secret. She shivered and wanted to crawl under the table to hide. "I told you he wouldn't give a crap about us anymore," she said, shame and adrenaline mixing and making her words sharper than she'd intended.

"No, it wasn't like that. He wanted me to stay with you. He loves you, you know."

"He loves her." Miley was going to argue, but Lilly wouldn't let her. "Did you write that paper yet?"

"Lilly. He wanted me to stay with you. He wanted me to watch you." How did he know? she thought wildly, guiltily. How did he know what she had planned? "He wanted me to make sure you're okay."

"No, he didn't." No. He didn't.

"Yes, he did."

No, he didn't. "Only because of her."

"You are her."

The surface of the table was a dark brown, darker lines of wood grains making something of a pattern across it. The table wasn't even real wood. They just put that top on it so it would look better.

"No," Lilly said. "I'm not." She looked across the room at Oliver, eating alone. "You should go sit with him."

"I'm sitting with you."

She wouldn't if she knew.

—

The bell was going to ring any second and the halls were slowly clearing. Miley was already gone, her next class on the other side of the school, but Lilly lingered at her locker. She felt claustrophobic in these walls, like the building had suddenly become too small for her. She'd thought she had outgrown this place a long time ago, but now it seemed like she hadn't, like it had been following her, haunting, and it was only finding herself here again that made her realize it had been there all along.

Lilly shut her locker and let her eyes slide over the few stragglers left without seeing them. Standing here, she felt so far away from this. She wanted to be away from it. Not the way she had for the past week and a half, not because she hated it, hated what everyone else here thought of her, but because nothing here was important. Not the classes, not the other students.

"You know, Ashley, I never thought it was that hard to tell the difference between someone's hair and a pile of cat vomit, but this is giving me some real trouble."

The hallway snapped into focus, Amber in the middle of it, Ashley, as always, a half-step behind her. This had happened a thousand times. Lilly could picture every one of them, the memories coming so strong she could swear she saw a flicker of herself standing behind Amber's other shoulder.

But she was here, too, facing Amber. She had been on this side of the scene just as often. Maybe more.

The bell sounded and the few remaining students disappeared. It was just the three of them.

"They make products that can help with that," Amber said. "You might want to try shampoo."

"Yeah, you might want to try shampoo," Ashley echoed.

It should have hurt, but Lilly almost laughed. Amber was her friend, and even when she hadn't been, Lilly had worried constantly about what she'd thought. All these years, she'd tried so hard to please Amber, to please everyone she'd thought was important, and now...now all of those people were gone. Evaporated.

So what good was any of it? What had it gotten her, in the end? Nothing. She was right back here where she'd started. And what had it cost her? Oliver. Her family. Knowing if they were all right.

"Amber," Lilly said, but it wasn't the start of something. It was only an acknowledgement; she didn't have anything to say to Amber. Not a single thing. She'd lost her life, everything. Why should she care what Amber thought? Why had she ever cared? She could remember every time Amber had torn her down, every time she'd helped Amber tear down someone else, but she couldn't remember that.

"Of course, I'd expect something like this from someone who's a big enough dork to show up to school dressed like _that_."

Lilly smiled just a little. She could have been wearing something different today. Yesterday she could've gotten something better than what Amber currently had on. But instead, tomorrow she would hang curtains in her dad's apartment. Amber didn't know anything about her. She never had, not really. And Lilly had nothing to say to her.

She looked at Ashley instead. "You don't have to be like this," she said.

Ashley's forehead wrinkled and Amber's eyes snapped with fury at being ignored. "Like what?" she demanded. She paced closer, coming in to a distance where she could do more damage, and Ashley followed along like Amber had her on a pull string. Ashley wasn't angry like Amber was, though. She mostly looked confused, and that made Lilly smile again. Ashley had been confused a lot. It used to annoy Lilly sometimes, how slow she was, but this time it was endearing. Lilly felt a wave of affection for her. There was a lot she would have said to Ashley, if only she could.

"Like what?" Amber said again. "Popular?"

Lilly shifted her attention to Amber for a second. "A conceited, stuck-up, bitchy little asshole," she said clearly, meeting Amber's eyes. "Like you."

Then she was back to Ashley, whose mouth was dropping open, shocked. Lilly couldn't say everything she wanted to. Maybe one thing would be enough. "You don't have to stay with her. You don't need her. Other people would like you."

Amber sneered. "What, like they like you, loser?"

"No." Lilly looked away, down the empty hall. "Not like that." Because who liked her, really? Miley? Miley didn't know what she'd done, what she was really like.

"Exactly." Amber was all satisfaction. "Because no one does. You're at the bottom of the list, freak, and you always will be. And if you think your pathetic little life has been miserable already, just wait, because I – "

"Back off, Amber." It was Oliver. He'd come out of the boys bathroom across the hall from them.

"Or what?" Amber asked, distinctly unimpressed.

"Or my lunch ends up on your head tomorrow."

"You wouldn't dare."

"I hear we're having chocolate pudding tomorrow. And spaghetti. I'd hate to see the stain those would leave."

Amber flipped hair over her shoulder. "Whatever. We were leaving anyway."

"Yeah, we were leaving anyway," Ashley chimed in.

Amber stepped closer. "No one's ever going to talk to you again when I'm done with you," she hissed. "You're going to be less than nothing." She brushed past Lilly, her shoulder forcing Lilly back into the bank of lockers. In another moment both of them were gone.

Oliver barely glanced at her before he started down the hall in the opposite direction Amber and Ashley had taken.

"Oliver," Lilly said, and then didn't know why she had. There was a lot she would have said to Oliver, too, but she couldn't, not to him. But he had stopped, he was waiting. "You shouldn't have done that." She hated that he had, that he would, when she...

For a second, he looked just like Amber, scornful. "You're welcome."

"Oliver, I'm sorry." She could say that to him, at least. "I should've told you and Miley as soon as I figured it out."

Oliver hooked his thumbs around the straps of his bookbag. The cast stood out against the dull orange of his shirt. Lilly could see Miley's name stretching out across the top of the otherwise empty surface. "Yeah, you should have. So why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to believe it. I thought maybe I was wrong. I thought maybe...if I didn't say it, it wouldn't be real." All of that was true. None of it was the reason she hadn't told him. But suddenly she wanted it to be.

"Is Lilly going to be okay?"

Maybe. No. Maybe. "I don't know."

He spun around, slammed his cast against a locker. Lilly cringed. "You're the only one who knows!" he yelled. "The only one!"

He was so loud she quickly glanced up and down the hallway to see if anyone had heard. One of the classroom doors opened and Mr. Carter stuck his head out of it. Ben had him sophomore year for AP Government. "Truscott, Oken," he snapped. "Get to class!"

"Yes, sir," Oliver said. Mr. Carter went back inside, shutting the door. Oliver lowered his voice. "It was your life." The volume wasn't there but the anger still was. "You know. Tell me what Lilly's walking into."

How could she? How could she even begin to tell him what she'd done, what her life was like? He didn't like her now, but he would hate her then. She knew. She'd already been through it once. "She...it's fine. I mean, she won't need anything. I had...she'll have money."

"Money," he said in utter disbelief. "Great. Her whole life just got ripped away, but that's okay, because she can go _shopping_."

Heat flamed her cheeks. What did he want from her? She was trying to be nice. "She'll have Miley."

He stared at her. "But not me."

She slowly shook her head. Not Oliver, not her parents. She didn't think it would help to tell him Lilly would have Amber and Ashley.

"What happened?" he asked. "What happened between us?"

Seventh grade. First day back at school after Christmas break. A hallway just like this one. All the same players, plus another forty or fifty students. Amber had spent the first half of the year mercilessly picking on Lilly. Oliver, too, but Lilly had taken most of it. She'd been pushed in the hallways, had nasty notes left in her locker. They were anonymous, but it wasn't like it was a mystery who wrote them. Most of the bathroom stalls had the same messages inked on them in permanent marker. Those were in code, but not the kind of code that kept you from figuring out what it said. And the day before break, someone had tripped her in the cafeteria and Lilly had fallen on top of her macaroni and cheese. She had to wear her dirty, sweaty gym shirt for the rest of the day because the principal wouldn't let her go home early.

All Lilly had asked for that Christmas was money. She took every penny she got and bought an outfit she'd seen on some star in a magazine, plus makeup that had cost more than she'd ever spent on anything else. She just wanted it to stop. She wanted – she wanted people to like her. But that day, she'd known the new clothes and makeup weren't enough, because there was Amber, still mocking of her.

"God, I just hate it when I see a cow that's gotten all dressed up and thinks that makes it pretty. It's sad, isn't, Ashley?"

"So sad," Ashley agreed.

And there was Oliver, sticking up for her. "Leave her alone."

But of course that just made Amber turn on him. "Aw, is the big boy going to protect his little girlfriend?" Her fake look of sympathy turned into contempt. "At least she's making an effort. You look like your mother still dresses you. Does she lay out clothes for you every morning?"

She didn't give him a chance to say anything, she was smirking at Lilly, one eyebrow raised. "Does his mommy pick out clothes for him? Does he still need his teddy bear to sleep at night?"

It was one moment. One moment where Amber was looking at her like they were sharing something, like they were in on the joke together. One moment where all the kids around them were already giggling, and Lilly didn't want them to be laughing at her. And in another moment, the next one, if she did nothing, if she defended Oliver, they would be. So she said, "A teddy bear? Please, he still wets the bed."

Amber laughed. There was so much delight in it, like Lilly had just give her the perfect Christmas present. "Lilly!" she shrieked, still laughing. Not loser, or dork, or freak. Lilly. She hadn't thought Amber even knew her name. "Oh my god! You never told me you were so funny! Does he really?"

Lilly looked at Oliver. She thought he would say something, but he was just standing there, shock and hurt all over his face. She didn't think he even heard the other students laughing, the way what Lilly had said was spreading out from them. It would be all over school in a minute. She couldn't let that happen. It was just a joke. "He – "

"Oh my god, I have the best idea," Amber said, looping her arm through Lilly's. Lilly stared down at them, feeling like she was floating out of her body. This couldn't really be happening. "You should sit with me and Ash at lunch, and then you can tell us _everything_. Someone as funny as you shouldn't be hanging out with a loser like him, anyway."

It was just one moment. One moment where she didn't say no. All she wanted was to be popular. To be liked. And this was her chance, probably the only one she would ever get. She'd tried to explain that to Oliver. She'd tried to apologize, to tell him that she hadn't meant it, it was just a joke, and she would fix it once Amber was her friend.

But it had spread all over school by the end of the day and he'd slammed his front door in her face. All the kids started singing the Mellow Yellow song every time Oliver walked by, and someone poured Mountain Dew into a diaper and taped it up to Oliver's locker, dripping. By the end of the week, the only one who'd be seen with him was Rico. The _eleven-year-old_.

Lilly had been in the hall with Amber and Ashley the next Monday before classes started when Oliver and Rico walked past. "Awww," Amber cooed at them. "Did the wittle boys have a sleepover this weekend? Did you play with your racecars and G.I. Joes? I hope Oken brought an extra pair of underwear."

Oliver was glaring at them. At her. Like he hated her. But she hadn't meant for it to go this far. This wasn't her fault. It wasn't fair for him to hate her when she hadn't even done anything. It wasn't. But if that was the way he wanted to be, then fine.

"Don't worry," she said. She made sure Oliver could hear her. "I'm sure his mommy remembered to pack some Pull-Ups."

It had made Amber laugh. She hadn't looked to see what it did to Oliver.

Oliver was still looking at her, waiting for her to say something. Lilly shook her head. "Does it really matter?"

He exhaled and let his hands fall from the bookbag straps. "No, I guess not."

"It was my fault," she blurted out when he once again started to leave. It wasn't just Ashley, she realized. There were so many things she wanted to say, and the people she wanted to say them to were all out of reach forever. "What happened. It wasn't you. I did it. It...it was my fault. and I – " She wished she hadn't. "I'm sorry."

"I can't forgive you, Lilly."

"I know." Although she didn't know if he meant for what she'd done then or for not telling him his friends weren't coming back. But that didn't really matter either. "I just...I wish I could do it over again."

"You can." He sounded so bitter that Lilly found herself holding her breath. "Lucky you, you got your wish. Someone hit rewind and now you can do it all over again."

He was right, she realized. He was right. She could do everything over again. She would have to, and maybe...maybe she could do things differently this time. Like she just had with Amber. Maybe history didn't have to repeat itself, maybe –

"Congratulations," Oliver continued, spitting the word out. "And all it took was my best friend losing her whole life so you could have it." His chest was heaving and she thought he might hit the locker again, or shout, but then the fight deflated out of him, leaving nothing behind. "So, Lilly? Don't waste it."

Lilly focused on the tile under her feet, feeling the walls close in around her. "I'll try."

"Yeah, well." He started walking. "Good luck." He meant goodbye. She'd known all along that this had nothing to do with her, that he didn't want anything to do with her, and she didn't blame him. But she remembered what Miley had said, that even so, he still wanted her to be okay.

"Oliver," she called, stopping him again, and Lilly could see annoyance on his face when he looked back at her. She wanted to apologize again, but that would just annoy him more. She wanted to tell him that Lilly would be all right, but she didn't know if that was true. After all, she hadn't been.

"Thanks," she said instead. "For..." She gestured towards where Amber and Ashley had been and he nodded. "But you don't have to." He shouldn't have to worry about her, not even a little. He shouldn't have to think he had to watch out for her. "I can take care of myself."

"I know," he said. "But you don't have to."

But she didn't know if he was right about that, too.

—

The rest of the school day was so blurred that afterwards Lilly couldn't even remember if she'd gone to the right classes. She mechanically walked through the halls after the last bell and stared into the shadows at the back of her locker without seeing anything. She'd always thought she'd known exactly what she wanted, who she wanted to be, but now she felt unmoored, adrift from all of that.

Could she change things here, make them different? What would she do? Forget about the money and stay with her family? What if she screwed things up? Would her mother still want her there?

And she would have to stay in school. She would have to keep coming back here, day after day, for four more years. She didn't know if she could do that. Even though she didn't care what Amber, or anyone else in this building, thought, Amber could still make her life hell. She knew that very well.

And what about Miley? She couldn't tell her the truth. Was she supposed to try to be the person Miley thought she was? The person her family thought she was? She didn't know if she could. How would she know what to do? Sooner or later, she would mess something up, she would disappoint them, she knew she would. And then what? What would they do?

Could things ever really be different?

A nearby locker clanged shut, an echo of Oliver's cast against one of them earlier, and it pulled Lilly from her daze just as Miley appeared at her side.

"Hey." Things were different for Miley here. Very different. And she had this look that said Lilly was part of that.

"Hey."

"So I've got this thing this afternoon. Taylor Kingsford. I thought maybe you'd want to go."

"I love Taylor Kingsford," Lilly said.

"So you'll go?"

Everything inside of Lilly was churning, and she just wanted it to stop, and being around Miley only made it worse. Lilly didn't want to face it. She wanted to run away from all of it, from everyone. Just like she had before.

"Sure," she said, swallowing down what rose up.

—

The plan was they'd stop at Lilly's house first, for clothes and hair, and then do the same at Miley's. Lilly changed quickly, dusted on some of the garish eyeshadow she'd dismissed in disgust when she first got here. She'd dismissed everything in disgust. But now...

Did this make it easier? she asked the phantom in her reflection. Slipping on another identity, turning into Lola, having everyone sick with envy seeing her hanging off Hannah's arm, did that make the misery school could be easier? Did she get along better with her mother because she had this other life to disappear into, one where none of her problems existed?

The mirror didn't answer. Lilly grabbed lipstick, an electric blue wig, and forced herself downstairs before she could change her mind about going. She frowned at the bottom of the steps, hearing noise in the kitchen. She'd thought Miley was staying in the car with Robby Ray.

It wasn't Miley. It was her mother. "You're home," Lilly said.

"I just got here," Heather said. "I have all this paperwork to do from yesterday, but I thought I could do it just as easily here. Where are you going?"

Lilly looked down at the mass of blue in her hands. It was so bright it looked like candy, like blue raspberry syrup that was so sweet it had to be artificial. "Miley has a thing. An interview."

Heather had her briefcase open on the table and was pulling out folders, flipping through them. "Are you going on with her?"

"I – I don't know." She should want to. She should have asked Miley if she could. She should be trying to get on TV, to leverage that exposure to make sure the right people knew about Lola, would care about her as something more than just Hannah's friend. For when she wasn't anymore.

But she hadn't even thought of doing that, and thinking about it now brought back the churning feeling from school. "I don't think so."

"Well, it'll still be fun." Heather was making stacks now, turning the papers different ways to keep certain groups together. "And it's okay if you want to have dinner at Miley's. Ben's working tonight and I've got this pile of papers to go through. But there's leftovers in the fridge or we can order something if you want to eat here, okay?"

"Okay." Of all the things she wanted to say, all the people she wanted to say them to, her mother was maybe the most important. "Mom? I'm sorry."

Her mother looked up from her papers, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What did you do?"

Those words robbed Lilly of an answer. This woman would never know what Lilly had done, and it seemed grossly unfair. Unfair that Lilly should have this clean slate. Unfair that she would never be able to apologize to the mother she'd hurt. "I...I know I've been acting weird the past couple weeks."

Heather's face softened. "Well. I guess you're allowed to act weird every once in a while." She laughed and came to give Lilly a hug. Lilly leaned into it, knowing she shouldn't. She didn't deserve this, everything forgiven like it had never happened because it hadn't. If her mother knew...what?

On the nights Lilly had lain alone in her world, she had sometimes wondered what would happen if she tried to go home. She'd wondered if her mother would speak to her or slap her, let her in or cast her out. She hadn't liked those thoughts and had made sure to spend very few nights alone so as not to think them, and now that was another question she would never know the answer to.

"I'm sorry," she said again. She was. Because what had happened with her family, her mom – that was her fault, too. They'd both fought, but Lilly had been the one who walked away. That was what she would tell her mother if she could. _I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left._

Heather chuckled and kissed Lilly's forehead. "It's all right. I know you think I don't remember what it's like to be your age, but I do. The whole puberty-growing up thing can really suck, huh?"

Yeah, Lilly thought. It was even worse the second time around.

—

Lilly used the vanity in Miley's room to put the blue wig on while Miley changed in the Hannah closet, Robby Ray yelling up the stairs every thirty seconds that they were going to be late. Lilly barely heard him. She focused in on the bobby pins and wig, taking quick, fragmented glances in the mirror to check if it was straight, the pins hidden.

"We'll be down in a minute!" Miley shouted. "We won't be late!" She was suddenly right behind Lilly.

"He tells us to hurry and then he won't drive faster than thirty the whole way there," she muttered to Lilly. Lilly tried to laugh. "So how do I look?" She spread her arms out and twirled around once, and Lilly hadn't seen her as Hannah in a week and a half. Last time, it had seemed normal, right, but so much had happened since then, and this time it was wrong, she looked just exactly like Miley had, a ghost in solid flesh.

The sick feeling surged back up, Lilly couldn't get rid of it, she pushed it down and down but it stayed in her stomach, curdling.

"Well?" Miley asked.

"I – " Lilly cleared her throat to get her voice above a whisper. "I almost didn't recognize you."

Miley smiled, obviously pleased with that answer. It made Lilly feel worse. "Perfect. Let's go before my dad has an aneurysm."

Lilly took one last look in the mirror. She almost didn't recognize herself either.

—

This was just press, so they didn't have a limo. They got back in Robby's car, and every second they were there Lilly wished she wasn't. She hated cars in this world. She hated being driven. She itched to have one of her own cars back, to have the freedom to go only where she wanted, to have that control over her life.

She could still get it back. She could go ahead with her plan. She could get the money and run. And lose her family again. Miley. But she might lose them anyway. Lilly glanced towards Miley even though she didn't want to. Seeing her looking like that bothered her.

Miley was peering at her phone, typing out a message, and Lilly wondered who she was texting. Oliver? Traci? Miley had other friends. Maybe she wouldn't care if Lilly was gone. She'd be pissed when Lilly demanded the money, sure. She'd be furious, and then she'd hate Lilly, just like Ha—Miley had.

No. Lilly thought about Saturday night, the look Miley had given her in the cafeteria. It wouldn't happen that way, she knew it wouldn't. Miley wouldn't be angry. She would be hurt.

Miley would care if she was gone.

They stopped at a traffic light and Lilly's stomach lurched with the motion, something sour rising in her throat. Because it would hurt Lilly, too. It had hurt the first time, even though she'd told herself over and over that it hadn't. Leaving would hurt. She'd known what she was doing last time, but she hadn't understood. This time she would. And no matter how much money she had, no matter how many clothes or shoes or friends she bought, no matter how much company she kept between her sheets, sooner or later, she would find herself alone, thinking about what she'd done. The people she'd hurt. Again.

"All right, girls, we're here. Roxy's meeting us."

"Roxy?" Miley asked. She and Lilly shrugged at each other with their eyes, the look they'd perfected the past two weeks that said, _No, I don't have any idea what the hell is going on either_. There was a little smile that went with it, one that faded from Lilly's lips as soon as Miley looked back at her father.

"I know you don't need a bodyguard for something like this, bud, but it's been a while since she's gotten to see you. She misses you."

Which was made very clear by the way the woman who must be Roxy hugged Miley so hard she lifted her off the ground. Miley was at least a foot taller, so she ended up half slung over Roxy's shoulder, trying not to pitch down her back, and it looked so ridiculous Lilly almost felt like laughing.

"Don't worry, you two," Roxy said once she'd set Miley back on her feet and was contemplating Lilly like she might try hugging her next. Lilly edged behind Miley. "I've got my eyes on everyone here! Nothing's gonna happen while Roxy's on the job!"

Inside, they were met by a chattering PA who led them up an elevator and down several hallways. Lilly lagged behind, which was easy to do. She might have fluorescent blue hair, but everyone who saw them in the halls only had eyes for Hannah. A few days ago, that would have galled Lilly. Now she was grateful to escape notice.

"...all set up and ready for you," the PA was saying. "Of course, if you need anything, just ask and..."

They passed a restroom and Lilly slipped inside. She put her back against the door and exhaled, listening with relief as the woman's voice and the group's footsteps faded away. She just needed a minute or two to herself, so she could think, breathe. So she could not feel like everything was crashing down on her head.

Of course, bathrooms had mirrors, and Lilly was kind of done with mirrors right now. She went past them without looking and locked herself in a stall. It wasn't much better, because the toilets were the kind that didn't have lids on them, so she couldn't even sit down. So she felt like an idiot just standing in a bathroom stall, on top of everything else.

At least this gave her a little time away from Miley and that damn wig, everyone acting like they always had around Hannah, reminding Lilly of what she'd done, how she'd acted.

But that wasn't all her fault, was it? It hadn't all been her. She'd used Hannah, but Hannah had used her, too. Lilly had known she was even if she hadn't known how.

She should have stayed at home.

The hall was deserted when Lilly stepped out of the bathroom. Great. She had no idea where to go. This was the one thing she'd never done with Miley in her world. Concerts and parties, all the time. CD signings until Lilly got bored of them. But never interviews, never publicity. She'd always thought it was because Miley didn't want to share the spotlight, but it hadn't been that at all. Miley hadn't wanted to share _her_.

"There you are!" Roxy barreled down the corridor towards her. "I almost had to go to triple code red. Where were you? Did someone try to abduct you? Where is he? Point him out, I'll take care of him."

"I was just in the bathroom."

"You know all bathroom breaks have to be cleared through me!" Roxy propelled her through the halls and around a couple corners before shoving her into a room occupied by Miley and Robby Ray. "Code green, Rocky is secure," she barked into the room before turning and planting herself in front of the doorway.

There was a couch and a couple chairs in the room, and a table with snacks and about eight different brands of bottled water, plus three different diet sodas. A flat screen on the wall switched between feeds from the cameras on the set. Robby was sitting on one of the chairs talking into his phone while Miley examined the water selection. She still looked just like Hannah always had. "Rocky?" Lilly asked her, trying to ignore that.

Miley smirked. "Before she realized you were gone, Roxy decided we need code names."

"_Rocky_?" Lilly said again. Did she have some sort of resemblance to Sylvester Stallone that she was unaware of?

"Yeah, Rocky." Miley was still smirking. "I'm Bullwinkle. You know, moose – " She pointed her thumb at herself. " – and squirrel." She puffed out her cheeks and laughed a little, and Lilly tried to smile back.

The PA returned to escort Miley to the set. "I'll just wait here," Lilly mumbled, but Miley grabbed her hand and dragged her along. "Is the wig on straight?" she whispered on the way, and Lilly nodded. "I always feel like it's crooked, or it might fall off, or something. But I guess I'll get used to it."

She said it so flippantly, like it would be easy to do. Like getting used to her whole life here would be easy, but Lilly didn't know if she would ever be able to do that.

They reached the edge of the set and Taylor Kingsford bounded over. "Hannah, so lovely to see you again! And your friend..."

"Lola," Miley supplied.

"Right, of course," Taylor covered. "The two of you aren't planning on a repeat of that dancing incident, are you? Not that it wasn't very, uh, _creative_," he added diplomatically.

Miley and Lilly exchanged the look that confirmed neither of them knew what he was talking about. "No, nothing like that," Miley said carefully. The relief on Taylor's face was obvious. "Lola's just watching, and I'm just here for your standard interview. But did the band get the music I sent over? I know it's kind of rough."

"They said they can work with it," Taylor assured her. "And we couldn't be happier to be getting an exclusive look at some of your new songs." Another PA was hovering around. "We'll be on in a few. I'll let you get miked."

The new PA swarmed Miley as soon as Taylor left. He chattered just as much as the old one, and Lilly tuned him out. But she shouldn't have, because too quickly they started filming, and Taylor was announcing Miley, except he called her Hannah, of course, and she was walking out to the prompted applause.

The two of them chatted for a few moments. It wasn't just the wig. Miley was acting like Hannah had too. Usually they were so different, it was easy to tell them apart. It was how Lilly had been sure it was the Miley from this world who had stayed in hers all that time. But in front of the cameras, in front of the fans, they were the same. No wonder no one had noticed Miley was a different person. How many people had seen them when they weren't acting?

Lilly had. She hadn't known what that meant the first time, but she did now.

"You're singing two songs for us tonight, right?" Taylor was saying.

"That's right," Miley confirmed.

"And I think our viewers are in for a pretty big surprise. Are you ready?"

Miley switched to a handheld mike and took her place on the small stage that had been set up. She looked...excited, and she turned to catch Lilly's eye and winked. The music began and Miley started to sing.

"Where did this song come from?" Robby Ray said under his breath. Lilly jumped. She hadn't noticed when he came up next to her. Roxy was on his other side.

"_Maybe I will never be who I was before_," Miley sang. "_Maybe I don't even know her anymore_." She remembered Miley on the beach, talking about the songs she was writing, saying, _No one's ever going to have any idea what they mean_.

"She didn't tell me she was going to do this," Robby Ray was saying. "We already talked about this once."

"_Or maybe who I am today ain't so far from yesterday_."

Maybe not for Miley. She loved it here. It was almost like she'd been waiting to come.

Lilly took a few steps backwards. She wanted to go back to the green room, or even the bathroom, somewhere where she didn't have to listen to this. But Roxy turned and glared at her and Lilly froze.

The audience was clapping and cheering. Miley made her way back to the chair beside Taylor's desk. "That was an exclusive, brand new hit from Hannah Montana!" Taylor crowed. "You heard it here first!" He paused a minute to let the noise die down. "You definitely have a hit on your hands," he told Miley. "And this one is special, because you wrote it yourself, is that right?"

"I did. It's called _Every Part of Me_, and I just wrote it."

"Along with the other song you're going to sing tonight."

"Yes."

"And are these songs going to be on the new album?"

Robby Ray crossed his arms over his chest.

"Not this one, but I'm hoping the one after that."

"You're hoping? You can't make us wait any longer than that."

"Well, it's not by choice," Miley said. She looked extremely satisfied with the way the interview was going. "I'm just not sure I'll be able to put them on an album any time soon. My label and I...let's just say we're having creative differences."

"What is she doing?" Robby Ray muttered.

The audience booed that revelation. "Uh-oh!" Taylor said. "That doesn't seem like a very smart move on their part. I bet their competition would be ecstatic at the opportunity to swoop in and offer you all the creative control you need. Especially if you're creating songs like that."

Miley's smile was thin and hard. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Taylor laughed, too deep for it to be real. "I'm sure they are. All right, we're going to take a break and then we'll be right back to hear your other song, _only_ on the Taylor Kingsford show! So you'd better stick around, because who knows how long before you'll get to hear it again!"

He jumped from his chair and almost ran off the set. "Bathroom," he called over his shoulder.

"Two minutes." The pronouncement came from someone holding a clipboard. Miley nodded at him and left her own chair. "Miley Ray," her dad said as she approached them. "What do you think you're – "

"Sorry, Daddy, I need to talk to Lilly a minute." She pulled Lilly off to one side. "So?" she asked.

"So what?" Lilly said.

"So what did you think of the song?" Miley demanded. "Did you like it?"

"Oh. Yeah," Lilly forced herself to say. "It was great."

"Good." Miley relaxed. "I'm glad you did, because..." She looked down, suddenly shy. Lilly's stomach plummeted. "The next one's kind of for you. And I really hope you like it."

No. Not again. Not _again_. Things were supposed to be different.

Before she could say anything, Miley was back on the set, brushing off her father's hand when he tried to get her attention. Lilly watched, miserable, while Miley once more chatted with Taylor. She had no idea what they were saying, she couldn't hear any of it, all she could hear was what Miley had said, but she didn't know which one of them was saying it.

Miley was onstage again, the band was playing. She didn't wink at Lilly this time. She smiled, hopeful. _You don't even know me_, Lilly thought.

"I can't," Lilly said. She didn't realize she'd said it out loud until she saw Robby and Roxy looking at her. "I-I can't." She couldn't do this. Not again. "I have to go."

She stumbled backwards, then turned and tried to find the way back to the green room. She didn't run, but she walked as fast as she could, dodging the other people in the halls. It seemed like there was a lot more of them than there had been twenty minutes ago. Too many.

She found the green room, but as soon as she did she knew it wasn't good enough. She had to _leave_. She had to get away from this. From Miley.

She spun around and bounced off of Robby Ray. Roxy was right behind him. "Lilly, are you okay?" he asked. "What happened?"

"I have to go," Lilly said.

"Miley will be done in a few more minutes."

"I have to go _now_." She was starting to panic. She couldn't see Miley again, not with her saying those things and looking like that. Because it had all been her. Maybe Hannah had tried to use her to replace her best friend, but she hadn't been trying to hurt Lilly. She hadn't tried to take anything from her. She'd only tried to be Lilly's friend. She'd given Lilly everything she wanted, and Lilly had turned around and...

"What's wrong?" Robby Ray asked.

"Did someone make a threat I need to know about?" Roxy said.

"No," Lilly choked out. "Nothing's wrong. I just – I really need to go home. Right now."

"Okay, okay, calm down," Robby Ray said. "Roxy will take you."

"No!" She did not want to be around any of them. "No, I'll, I can call a cab."

"I am not letting you take a cab all the way back to Malibu. Roxy can take you or I can take you."

Roxy cleared her throat once they were on the highway. "What's going on?" she asked. "Did Miley say something to you?"

"I just want to go home," Lilly said. Why hadn't they just let her go? She wanted to be alone. She should be alone. That was what she deserved.

When they got to her house, Roxy sat in the car and watched to make sure she went inside. Lilly fumed about it until she got inside and tried to run a hand through her hair. That damn wig and these clothes.

"You're back?" Heather called from somewhere in the house.

"Yeah," Lilly said, racing up the stairs. "But I'm going back out." She couldn't stay here with her mother any more than she could have stayed at the set with Miley. As soon as she was in her room, she ripped off the wig and clothes, throwing on new ones and not touching her hair beyond letting it down. She didn't care what it looked like, what she looked like.

"What about your homework?" her mother asked as Lilly came down the stairs again, still moving fast.

Homework. School every day. "I'll be back in time to do it. I'm just meeting Oliver at the beach." She used to lie to her mother all the time about what she was doing.

"Do you want me to drop you off?"

She was already out the door. "No!" She didn't want to be driven anywhere. She wanted to run.

—

Juliana was going to flip when she saw the interview. It was going to be a thing of beauty. On the way over, Miley had texted her to ask if the label had said anything new. No, Juliana had said, although she'd added a few more words that eloquently expressed how she felt about the situation.

Coming off the set, Miley was met by her father, whose face was doing a pretty stellar imitation of a stone wall. Which was probably to be expected, since she hadn't clued him in to the stunts she'd just pulled. But there hadn't really been time. She only made up her mind for sure to do it when she got Juliana's text.

"Where's Lilly?" she asked, because it would be a lot better if he waited until they were in the car before he blew up at her. And also because she wanted to know. She wanted to know what Lilly thought about the song.

"She's gone," he said.

Someone could have pulled out a gun and pointed it right at her and it probably wouldn't have scared her as much as hearing him say that. "What do you mean, gone?" She forgot all about her satisfaction over the interview. If Lilly was gone, then they were wrong. "She disappeared?"

He gave her a strange look. "No, Roxy drove her home. Do you think I'd just be standing around here if Lilly was missing?"

"Right," Miley said. Except of course Lilly _was_ missing. So was his daughter., because of course Lilly was missing. It wasn't funny at all, but she felt a little like she might break down and laugh hysterically. It was horrible, and the urge to do it was building up in her like a giant bubble that would keep pushing and expanding until it somehow forced itself out of her skin.

"She said she needed to go home, but she wouldn't give us a reason."

That popped the bubble pretty quick. Why had Lilly left? "When did she leave?" She let him take her by the elbow and lead her from the set. The PA from earlier came back to show them out, still talking non-stop, but they both ignored her and kept up their own conversation.

"The second time you performed. You didn't tell me you were switching the songs, by the way."

She wasn't going to let him get started on that yet. "You think she didn't like that song?" Maybe she thought it was strange that Miley had written one for her. Maybe it was, but Miley just wanted her to know that, whatever happened, they were in this together.

"She didn't hear it. She left right when you got up onstage."

They were out of the building, across the short stretch of asphalt, and into the car. The PA shut her car door and stood outside her window, waving maniacally. Miley lifted a hand to acknowledge her, then turned to her dad. "Can we stop by her house on the way home?" What had happened?

He backed out of the parking spot. "We can if you tell me one thing. What the heck were you thinking?"

He wasn't going to let her get away with it any longer. "I'm sorry. I would have told you, but I didn't know I was going to do it until right before."

"Then how did the band get the music?"

"I sent it yesterday," she admitted. "But I didn't make up my mind to use it until I talked to Juliana before I went on."

"Is that what brought about that whole 'creative differences' dig?"

Miley grinned. "That was pretty good, wasn't it?" He was glaring. At the road, but she was pretty sure it was meant for her. "They're being completely unreasonable!" she protested.

"I thought we were going to talk more about the Hannah stuff."

Damn. That was what they'd agreed to. "I'm sorry. I really didn't decide until right before. But I won't do it again, I promise."

For a while they sat there and didn't talk, which gave her plenty of time to worry about how mad he was at her. Then finally he said, "If you're that set on getting your work out there, maybe we should rethink our deal."

Damn again. She hadn't thought about how that would look to him, yanking his songs and replacing them with hers. She hadn't meant for it to come off like that. "Maybe we should," she said. He nodded just a little and she saw his jaw clench. "We could do a seventy-five twenty-five split."

"If that's what you want."

"Yeah. You do seventy-five and I'll do twenty-five." He jerked his head around so fast she was afraid his arms were going to follow and they'd run off the road. "Could we not swerve into oncoming traffic, please?"

He put his eyes back on the road. Then he sighed. "Mile, I swear I don't know what's going on inside your head these days."

"I really am sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean...I just needed to perform those songs today." And flip off the label. "But that doesn't mean I don't still want you writing songs for me. I wasn't thinking. Lilly and I have been going through some stuff, and I just wasn't thinking."

"What kind of stuff?"

"You know. Friend stuff."

"Well, you two will be okay."

"Yeah," she said. "I know."

They passed a truck going thirty in the right lane. "We could do it like this," Robby Ray said. "You could write twenty-five percent, and I could write twenty-five percent, and we could work on the rest together."

She grinned. "Perfect." It was probably the best deal she'd ever gotten, and that included the contracts that made her millions. "And you know the homeschooling stuff?"

"Did you change your mind?"

"No. I was just thinking, maybe my lessons could include Home Ec."

"Home Ec? What do you – "

Miley rolled her eyes. Parents. You always had to spell things out for them. "I want you to teach me how to cook."

"Oh. Uh." He coughed, then cleared his throat, then coughed again. "We...we could start tonight."

"Cool." She got out her cell phone. "So we're stopping by Lilly's right?"

"Sure, of course."

"Thanks." She sent another text to Juliana: _watch taylor kingsford tomorrow. your gonna love me._

_what the fucking fuck did you do?_ Juliana sent back. Miley thought about Lilly leaving and not saying why, and she really didn't know.

—

The shirt was a little too big on her and the sun kept getting in her eyes. Miley kept walking, flip flops dangling from one hand. They were also a size too big, and she'd gotten tired of the way they kept spraying sand up on the back of her legs, so she'd taken them off. They were Lilly's. So was the shirt. She'd ditched the wig in Lilly's room, and switched her boots and designer top, the whole time thinking how glad she was that Hannah was something she could put away when she didn't want what came with it. Like now. She couldn't have gone walking on the beach like this at home, not without attracting a large, rabid following.

There was a big rock up ahead, jutting out into the surf, and she decided she would turn around when she got to it, try the other direction. But instead she climbed over it, and Lilly was on the other side, sitting in the sand.

"Hey," Miley said.

Lilly looked up, shocked. "Wh—how did you find me?"

"I went by your house. Your mom said you were surfing with Oliver. Then she listed all your favorite surf spots and told me to look there."

"This is one of Lilly's favorite surf spots?" Disbelief tinged her tone like the sinking sun did the sky.

"No. They were all a mile or two that way." Miley pointed back the way she'd come. "I've been walking almost an hour." Her first Home Ec lesson would have to wait until tomorrow.

Lilly sated resolutely out at the sea, which the sun was turning orange. The waves looked like flames. "You shouldn't have."

Miley sat down next to her and let the sandals drop in the sand. "What happened?"

"I just needed to leave. I couldn't be there."

"You don't have to do Hannah stuff with me if you don't want to. I just thought it would be fun."

"It wasn't that. Not just that. It's all of this. I don't know if I can do it anymore. I had to get away from here."

She wished this could be easier for Lilly. "You didn't go very far." Maybe she'd realized she didn't have to. That Miley could help her.

"Because I didn't have anywhere to go! Or any way to get there!"

"Lilly," Miley said delicately. "It'll be okay."

"I don't think so." Lilly swallowed nervously a few times and then her face hardened with resolve. "I haven't told you everything."

Miley knew that. Lilly had barely told her anything about her life before this happened. "You can, if you want. I'll listen."

Lilly laughed like there was something stuck in her throat. "You don't understand." She wouldn't take her eyes off of the ocean in front of them. It was red now. Bloody. "The first day she was there, Miley came and found me."

Of course she had. Miley couldn't believe she hadn't guessed that sooner. She should have guessed it, because of course that was what Miley had done. Her dad was gone, and Jackson, of course the first thing she would have done was go find Lilly.

"She had this wig on when she did it," Lilly continued. "A brown one."

Miley pulled her knees up and crossed her arms on top of them. I'm sorry, she thought at that other girl.

"She was trying to get me to recognize her, and then I did. I recognized Hannah."

"You didn't know," Miley said.

Lilly didn't seem to hear her. "She kept hanging out with me after that. She bought me things, got me into all these parties. She wanted us to be friends. I had no idea why."

But that was a good thing, right? It had helped Miley to have Lilly here; it would have helped Miley to have Lilly there, even if she wasn't the same as the Lilly Miley remembered. Why hadn't Lilly told her this? She wouldn't have worried as much if she'd known.

"I figured it had to be some kind of weird celebrity thing, that she'd get tired of me. So you know what I did?" Lilly was staring straight at the sun now, and Miley wanted to tell her to stop, that she would go blind in twenty years. "I took some of the things she told me and used them to blackmail her out of ten million dollars."

Lilly's voice hadn't changed the whole time she was talking. It was so emotionless that for a moment Miley was sure she must have misheard or hadn't understood what Lilly was really saying. "I – you – "

Lilly looked at her, and no, Miley had understood perfectly. "I was going to do it to you, too. With the Hannah secret."

No wonder Lilly hadn't told her. Miley's brain wouldn't work beyond forming that thought.

"She just wanted her best friend, and I stuck a knife in her back. And then I walked away from my family. That's why I never saw them. I thought they were embarrassing. I was pissed that my mom wouldn't let me spend all their money on clothes or stay out partying all night. So I took the money from Miley and left and refused to talk to them again. What kind of person does something like that?"

"Lilly," Miley said. "You – "

"That's how I knew it was her there that whole time. She hated me after that. I guess you do too now."

She could have. She might have been able to, if not for the past two weeks. If she hadn't seen how much it hurt Lilly to talk about her family. If she hadn't known how lonely Lilly was back home, if it hadn't been the same for her. If she hadn't been able to tell how painful it was for Lilly to tell her all of this now, even though she didn't have to, even though she could have gone on pretending none of it had ever happened and Miley never would have known.

"You were," Miley said.

"What?"

"You _were_. You were going to do the same thing to me. But you aren't." Miley wondered what she would have done if Lilly had. Give up Hannah? Give up the secret? Pay? She really didn't know.

"What difference does it make? Weren't you listening? I blackmailed Miley and as soon as I realized we were stuck here I decided to do the same thing to you. I acted like your friend even though I wasn't and I lied to you."

"How long had we been here? When you decided..."

Lilly raised one shoulder. "I don't know. A couple days."

A couple days after they'd gotten here, Miley had still thought Hannah was her life. But a lot could change in a week and a half. She had other things in her life now. One of them was sitting next to her. "And how long were you acting?"

"I – I don't know. I lied to myself a lot, too. I kept telling myself it was _all_ an act, that I didn't care. Even when that wasn't true."

Miley had done that. She'd told herself she didn't care that Jackson couldn't stand being her brother, that it didn't matter her father left her alone. "Today? This weekend?"

Lilly looked at her and swiftly away. "No."

"When you taught me how to not fall off a skateboard?"

Lilly shook her head.

"Okay," Miley said.

"Okay what?"

Miley shrugged. "Okay."

"_Okay_? No, it's not! This isn't something that can just be okay. How can you just sit there like it is? Didn't you hear what I did? How could you forgive me for that?"

"Because you haven't done anything to me."

"But I would have! And everything I did do..."

"You think there aren't things I regret doing?" Miley asked. There were so many. "But, Lilly, don't you understand what this place is? This is the place for second chances."

"I don't deserve a second chance."

"I probably don't either." Maybe no one did. Or everyone. "But we got them."

Lilly looked like she wanted to believe her, and like she was terrified that it might be true. "But what if I screw it up?"

"Then this is the place for third chances. Or fourth." As many as it took, that's what this place was. "It's the place where you can always fix things. It's the place where we can make things right."

"What if I don't know how?" Lilly whispered.

"Then we'll figure it out," Miley said. She reached over and took Lilly's hand, threading their fingers together, and they watched as the sun set into the water. "You and me. Together."

—

**END**

—


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